A holiday cottage, holiday home, or vacation property is accommodation used for holiday vacations. Such properties are typically small homes, such as cottages, that vacationers can rent and run as if it were their own home for the duration of their stay. The properties may be owned by those using them for a vacation, in which case the term second home applies; or may be rented out to holidaymakers through an agency.

Terminology varies among countries. In the United Kingdom this type of property is usually termed a holiday home or holiday cottage; in Australia, a holiday house/home, or weekender; in New Zealand, a bach or crib.

A second home or vacation home can be a home owner's asset as renting it could provide additional income. Many vacationers are opting for a single family residence that they can rent on a nightly or weekly basis. In many cases the savings for them are significant compared to hotels or vacation packages. For owners it can be as rewarding as paying the mortgage. As people begin to realize this trend vacation type properties are becoming popular not only for existing homes but also for building one.

Holiday cottages are found across the UK, with many destinations from town houses to forests. New Forest Holiday Cottages have become more popular in recent years, gaining a higher profile from such news as the New Forest becoming a National Park. Many other areas in the UK have seen a growth in the Holiday Cottage industry such as the Lake District and Cornwall. There are typically two routes to renting a holiday cottage. Either direct with an owner, or through the auspices of a holiday cottage agency. Several holiday home portals list cottages available direct from the owner, and charge an fee for listing the property.

The holiday cottage market in both Canada and the UK is highly competitive – and big business.[1] In the UK, this increased competition has led to significant improvements in the quality of properties on offer – so gone are the swirly carpets and tacky furniture of old, to be replaced by tasteful hues, character furnishings and quality appliances, in some cases providing a standard of accommodation more akin to a 'boutique' hotel. This improvement in standards has in turn contributed to the increase in the popularity of holiday cottages for weekend breaks, offering in many cases the same standard of accommodation as an hotel, yet with the increased freedom that a holiday cottage offers.

One other significant development in the UK holiday cottage market is that of Farm Stays, driven partly by the farmers and the poor returns they get from farming itself, but also by the desire of parents wanting their children to experience rural life first-hand.

The rapid development of the Internet and technologies such as telephony and personal digital assistants that allow people to work from home since circa 1995 has blurred the division between vacation property and a primary residence. Some business people, including the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, use their luxury real estate for both business and leisure purposes. Many internet services have developed to connect short term rental customers with owners or brokers of vacation properties.

Holiday homes and second homes comprise 14% of the housing stock in Snowdonia, Wales, compared to the figure of 1% for the whole of Wales.[2] Only in Gwynedd has the council put in place measures to control the number of holiday homes. But they only control new developments, by withholding permission where consent is likely to raise the figure in any community above 10%, they do not stop anyone from buying a holiday home.[3]

The number in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was calculated to be 5.6% in 2004 and 2006,[4] this is the region which has the highest number of second homes in England.[5] Within a year alone, between 2004 and 2005, the percentage of holiday/second homes in England increased by 3.3%.[6]

There were 29,299 holiday/summer homes in Scotland on the 2001 Scottish Census, which accounted for 1.3% of Scotland's housing stock.[7] This figure was 19,756 in 1981, but the majority of the increase occurred during the 1990s. The greatest increase was seen in urban areas, contrary to the usual trends, and increased especially in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. But the majority of holiday/second homes are still to be found in rural areas, notably, 47% of these are to be found in the remote rural areas, where one in every eight house is a holiday or second home.[8]

The figure in France is also fairly high: approximately 10% of all the housing stock is a holiday or second home, but the majority of these are owned by French. There are approximately 300,000 homes, or 1% of the total housing stock which are the property of owners from abroad. Of this percentage 28% are owned by British owners, 14% Italian, 10% Belgian, 8% Dutch, 3% Spanish and 3% American.[9]

In 2000, 3,578,718, or 3.09% of the American housing stock, were holiday or second homes, compared with 2.66% in 1990, and 1.87% in 1980. 26% of all these are located in the north-eastern states, with approximately 250,199 (7% of all the second homes in the U.S.) located in New York, and Maine having the largest percentage of its housing stock as second homes.[10]

Second homes are immensely popular, particularly during Canada's summer season. They are referred to differently in different parts of the country; in Ontario it is usually 'cottage', while 'cabin' or 'the lake' is used in much of the rest of Canada. In Ontario, the most popular destination is the Muskoka region of Ontario, known for its many lakes and forests. Muskoka is even referred to as "cottage country" and sees over 2.1 million visitors annually. On the East Coast, the Maritimes are home to many oceanfront cottages. Likewise, British Columbia on the West Coast is another popular vacation destination for seekers of vacation properties. In the Canadian Prairies and British Columbia Interior, vacation properties are located near or on freshwater lakes. Chalets at ski resorts are also common during winter.

In the UK, furnished holiday lettings offer other tax relief providing certain conditions are met. The current conditions are:

It should be available for commercial letting to the public for a total of 140 days in the 12-month period.

It must be let for at least 70 days in the 12-month period. (Where more than one qualifying property is held, it is possible to average the number of days all properties are let in total in order to meet this condition.)

The total periods of long term occupation may not exceed 155 days during the 12-month period.

Second home and holiday home owners used to be able to claim discounts in their council tax in the United Kingdom, as the property is vacant for much of the year. This is no longer true in many areas, including Carmarthenshire; if the property is empty (but furnished) no discount is permitted and the owner will be liable to pay the tax in full.[11] But, In Cornwall, since 2004 second home owners can claim a 10% discount in their council tax.[4] Prior to 2004, they could claim a 50% discount in Cornwall,[12] they are still able to claim 50% in many other areas in England.[5] The Welsh movement, Cymuned, promote the principle that owners of holiday homes should pay double the standard rate of council tax, as they do not otherwise invest in the local community.[13][14] Testimony of this is to be seen in a report on the effect of holiday homes in Scotland, which found that those who went on holiday to Scotland spent an average of £57 a day, in comparison to just £32 a day spent by those visiting their holiday or second homes.[3]

Owners of holiday homes will occasionally move to their second homes permanently upon retirement, this can be a threat to the culture of an area, especially in Wales where the influx of non-Welsh speakers affects the percentage of Welsh speakers in the area and reduces the use of Welsh in everyday life.[14][15] Hundreds of second homes were burnt between 1979 and the mid-1990s as a part of a campaign by nationalist movement Meibion Glyndŵr to protect the indigenous language and culture.

1.
Gloucestershire
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Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire originally included Bristol, then a small town. The local rural community moved to the city, and Bristols population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and it later became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. The official former postal county abbreviation was Glos, rather than the frequently used but erroneous Gloucs. or Glouc. In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, the RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion, the county recovered rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area. This is a chart of trend of gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling. Gloucestershire has mainly comprehensive schools with seven schools, two are in Stroud, one in Cheltenham and four in Gloucester. There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, all but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms, each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county. Most of the old market towns have parish churches, at Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, other notable buildings include Calcot Barn in Calcot, a relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, near Cheltenham is the 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone. Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve, the mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey

2.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years

3.
Portrush
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Portrush is a small seaside resort town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, on the County Londonderry border. The main part of the old town, including the station as well as most hotels, restaurants and bars, is built on a mile–long peninsula, Ramore Head. It had a population of 6,454 people as measured by the 2011 Census, in the off-season, Portrush is a dormitory town for the nearby campus of the University of Ulster at Coleraine. It neighbours the resort of Portstewart and it was the base for the Katie Hannan, a Severn class lifeboat and Ken and Mary, a D–class inshore lifeboat of the RNLI. Lifeboats have operated out of Portrush Harbour since 1860, and currently stationed there are the Severn class William Gordon Burr, Portrush is in the East Londonderry constituency for the UK Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly. A number of flint tools found during the nineteenth century show that the site of Portrush was occupied during the Larnian period. The site of Portrush, with its excellent natural defences, probably became a permanent settlement around the 12th or 13th century, a church is known to have existed on Ramore Head at this time, but no part of it now survives. From the records of the taxation of 1306, the Portrush church –. The promontory also held two castles, at varying periods, following the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the mid-seventeenth century, Portrush became a small fishing town. The towns fortunes peaked in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It escaped any involvement in The Troubles until 6 August 1976, in a second attack in April 1987, two officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary were shot in the back by the Provisional Irish Republican Army while on foot patrol on Main Street. Portrush is classified as a Small Town by the Northern Ireland Statistics, the 2011 Census recorded that there were 6,454 people living in Portrush. 4. 97% of people aged 16–74 were unemployed, for more details see, Northern Ireland Neighbourhood Information Service. There are two sandy beaches in the town, known as the West and East Strand. White Rocks and Curran Strand stretch on from the East Strand and are backed by dunes, the coast continues past Dunluce Castle to the Giants Causeway. A13 ft high sculpture, inspired by the sails of local traditional boats, is located at East Strand. Portrush is home to one of Northern Irelands best known nightclubs, the Kellys complex consists of a multitude of bars and clubs and is Northern Irelands largest nightclub complex. It includes the nightclub Lush. which attracts many of the worlds top DJs, Portrush is also home to Barrys Amusements, the largest amusement park in Northern Ireland

4.
Northern Ireland
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Northern Ireland is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom in the north-east of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the total population. Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by an act of the British parliament, Northern Ireland has historically been the most industrialised region of Ireland. After declining as a result of the political and social turmoil of the Troubles, its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17. 2% in 1986, dropping to 6. 1% for June–August 2014,58. 2% of those unemployed had been unemployed for over a year. Prominent artists and sports persons from Northern Ireland include Van Morrison, Rory McIlroy, Joey Dunlop, Wayne McCullough, some people from Northern Ireland prefer to identify as Irish while others prefer to identify as British. Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, in many sports, the island of Ireland fields a single team, a notable exception being association football. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games. The region that is now Northern Ireland was the bedrock of the Irish war of resistance against English programmes of colonialism in the late 16th century, the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland had been declared by the English king Henry VIII in 1542, but Irish resistance made English control fragmentary. Victories by English forces in war and further Protestant victories in the Williamite War in Ireland toward the close of the 17th century solidified Anglican rule in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, the victories of the Siege of Derry and their intention was to materially disadvantage the Catholic community and, to a lesser extent, the Presbyterian community. In the context of open institutional discrimination, the 18th century saw secret, militant societies develop in communities in the region and act on sectarian tensions in violent attacks. Following this, in an attempt to quell sectarianism and force the removal of discriminatory laws, the new state, formed in 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was governed from a single government and parliament based in London. Between 1717 and 1775 some 250,000 people from Ulster emigrated to the British North American colonies and it is estimated that there are more than 27 million Scotch-Irish Americans now living in the US. By the close of the century, autonomy for Ireland within the United Kingdom, in 1912, after decades of obstruction from the House of Lords, Home Rule became a near-certainty. A clash between the House of Commons and House of Lords over a controversial budget produced the Parliament Act 1911, which enabled the veto of the Lords to be overturned. The House of Lords veto had been the unionists main guarantee that Home Rule would not be enacted, in 1914, they smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers, a paramilitary organisation opposed to the implementation of Home Rule

5.
Cottage
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A cottage is, typically, a small house. It may carry the connotation of being an old or old-fashioned building, in modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cosy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. The word comes from the architecture of England, where it referred to a house with ground floor living space. In British English the term now denotes a small dwelling of traditional build, Cottages may be detached houses, or terraced, such as those built to house workers in mining villages. The tied accommodation provided to workers was usually a cottage. Peasant farmers were known as cotters. The holiday cottage exists in many cultures under different names, in American English, cottage is one term for such holiday homes, although they may also be called a cabin, chalet, or even camp. In certain countries the term cottage has local synonyms, In Finnish mökki, in Estonian suvila, in Swedish stage, in Norwegian hytte, in Slovak chalupa, in Russian дача. There are cottage-style dwellings in American cities that were primarily for the purpose of housing slaves In places such as Canada. Originally in the Middle Ages, cottages housed agricultural workers and their friends, the term cottage denoted the dwelling of a cotter. Thus, cottages were smaller peasant units, in that early period, a documentary reference to a cottage would most often mean, not a small stand-alone dwelling as today, but a complete farmhouse and yard. Thus, in the Middle Ages, the word cottage denoted not just a dwelling, but included at least a dwelling and a barn, as well as, usually, a fenced yard or piece of land enclosed by a gate. The word is probably a blend of Old English cot, cote hut and Old French cot hut, cottage, from Old Norse kot hut, examples of this may be found in 15th century manor court rolls. The house of the cottage bore the Latin name, domus, later on, cottage might also have denoted a smallholding comprising houses, outbuildings, and supporting farmland or woods. A cottage, in sense, would typically include just a few acres of tilled land. Examples of this included the Welsh Tŷ unnos or house in a night. Much later, from around the 18th century onwards, the development of industry led to the development of weavers cottages, in England and Wales the legal definition of a cottage is a small house or habitation without land. However, originally under an Elizabethan statute, the cottage had to be built with at least 4 acres of land, traditionally the owner of the cottage and small holding would be known as a cottager

6.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government

7.
Bach (New Zealand)
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A bach (/ˈbætʃ/, is a small, often very modest holiday home or beach house in New Zealand. Bach was thought to be short for bachelor pad. An alternative theory for the origin of the word is that bach is the Welsh word for small, baches began to gain popularity in the 1950s as roads improved and the increasing availability of cars allowed for middle-class beach holidays, often to the same beach every year. With yearly return trips being made, baches began to spring up in many family vacation spots and they are almost always small structures, usually made of cheap or recycled material like fibrolite, corrugated iron or used timber. They were influenced by the cabins and sheds of the early settlers and farmers. Other baches used a caravan as the core of the structure, a reconstructed example of a typical bach from the 1950s can be found in National Maritime Museum on Princes Wharf in central Auckland. The period-furnished bach is complemented with an adjacent beach shop with original products from that time, while older baches tend to be fibrolite lean-to structures, modern kit-set structures are becoming popular amongst bach owners. Department of Conservation figures estimate that more than 50,000 baches exist around New Zealand, early baches rarely enjoyed amenities like connections to the water and electricity grid or indoor toilets. They were furnished basically, often with second hand furniture, in more recent times the basic bach has been replaced by the modern holiday house, more substantial, more expensive and usually professionally built. Some bach-dotted beaches in the 1950s have today become suburban areas, as such they are quite prized, even though authorities typically look unfavourably on proposals to convert them into full residential buildings. Some baches whose construction was obviously legally dubious have been dismantled over time

8.
New Forest
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The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily populated south east of England. It covers southwest Hampshire and extends into southeast Wiltshire and towards east Dorset, the name also refers to the New Forest National Park which has similar boundaries. There are many dotted around the area, and several small towns in the Forest. There are around 250 round barrows within its boundaries, and scattered boiling mounds, the Jutes were one of the early Anglo-Saxon tribal groups who colonised this area of southern Hampshire. The word ytene is also found locally as a synonym for giant, following the Norman Conquest, the New Forest was proclaimed a royal forest, in about 1079, by William the Conqueror. It was used for royal hunts, mainly of deer and it was created at the expense of more than 20 small hamlets and isolated farmsteads, hence it was then new as a single compact area. Two of Williams sons died in the forest, Prince Richard in 1081 and this Forest at present affordeth great variety of Game, where his Majesty oft-times withdraws himself for his divertisement. The reputed spot of Rufuss death is marked with a known as the Rufus Stone. Tirrell him seing not, Unwares him flew with dint of arrow shot, the common rights were confirmed by statute in 1698. The New Forest became a source of timber for the Royal Navy, in the Great Storm of 1703, about 4000 oak trees were lost. It also reconstituted the Court of Verderers as representatives of the Commoners, as of 2005, roughly 90% of the New Forest is still owned by the Crown. The Crown lands have been managed by the Forestry Commission since 1923, felling of broadleaved trees, and their replacement by conifers, began during the First World War to meet the wartime demand for wood. Further encroachments were made during the Second World War and this process is today being reversed in places, with some plantations being returned to heathland or broadleaved woodland. During the Second World War, an area of the forest, further New Forest Acts followed in 1949,1964 and 1970. The New Forest became a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1971, the New Forest was proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in June 1999, and it became a National Park in 2005. Forest laws were enacted to preserve the New Forest as a location for royal deer hunting, there were also licences granted to gather bracken after Michaelmas Day as litter for animals. Along with grazing, pannage is still an important part of the Forests ecology, pigs can eat acorns without a problem, but for ponies and cattle large quantities of acorns can be poisonous. Pannage always lasts 60 days, but the date varies according to the weather –

9.
Lake District
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The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests and mountains and its associations with the early 19th century writings of William Wordsworth and the other Lake Poets. It is located in the county of Cumbria, and all the land in England higher than 3,000 feet above sea level lies within the National Park, including Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. It also contains the deepest and longest bodies of water in England, respectively Wast Water, the Lake District National Park includes nearly all of the Lake District, though the town of Kendal and the Lakeland Peninsulas are currently outside the park boundary. Its aim is to protect the landscape by restricting unwelcome change by industry or commerce, Most of the land in the park is in private ownership, with about 55% registered as agricultural land. Landowners include, Individual farmers and other landowners, with more than half of the agricultural land farmed by the owners. The National Trust owns about a quarter of the total area, the Forestry Commission and other investors in forests and woodland. United Utilities owns 8% Lake District National Park Authority The National Park Authority is based at offices in Kendal and it runs a visitor centre on Windermere at a former country house called Brockhole, Coniston Boating Centre, and Information Centres. Much of the land has statutory open access rights, which cover around 50% of the park. The lakes and mountains combine to form impressive scenery, farmland and settlement have altered the natural scenery, and the ecology has been modified by human influence for millennia and includes important wildlife habitats. However, in 2016 the English Lake District bid for World Heritage Status was submitted to UNESCO in the category of cultural landscape, a decision is expected in 2017. In December 2009, Natural England proposed extending the National Park in the direction of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and this would include land of high landscape value in the Lune Valley. The proposal was opposed by Cumbria County Council who said it would lead to less democratic control, a public inquiry was held into the proposals, which required a decision by the Secretary of State. The decision to recommend approval was announced on October 23,2015, the precise extent of the Lake District was not defined traditionally, but is slightly larger than that of the National Park, the total area of which is about 912 square miles. The park extends just over 32 miles from east to west, the Lake District is one of the most highly populated national parks. There are, however, only a handful of settlements within this mountainous area, the towns of Keswick, Windermere, Ambleside. Villages such as Coniston, Threlkeld, Glenridding, Pooley Bridge, Broughton-in-Furness, Grasmere, Newby Bridge, Staveley, Lindale, Gosforth, the economies of almost all are intimately linked with tourism. Beyond these are a scattering of hamlets and many isolated farmsteads, some of which are tied to agriculture

10.
Cornwall
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Cornwall is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, Cornwall has a population of 551,700 and covers an area of 3,563 km2. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the south-west peninsula of the island of Great Britain, and this area was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age peoples, there is little evidence that Roman rule was effective west of Exeter and few Roman remains have been found. In the mid-19th century, however, the tin and copper mines entered a period of decline, subsequently, china clay extraction became more important and metal mining had virtually ended by the 1990s. Traditionally, fishing and agriculture were the important sectors of the economy. Railways led to a growth of tourism in the 20th century, however, the area is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its long and varied coastline, its attractive villages, its many place-names derived from the Cornish language, and its very mild climate. Extensive stretches of Cornwalls coastline, and Bodmin Moor, are protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history. Some people question the present constitutional status of Cornwall, and a nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom in the form of a devolved legislative Cornish Assembly. On 24 April 2014 it was announced that Cornish people will be granted minority status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The modern English name Cornwall derives from the concatenation of two ancient demonyms from different linguistic traditions, Corn- records the native Brythonic tribe, the Cornovii. The Celtic word kernou is cognate with the English word horn. -wall derives from the Old English exonym walh, the Ravenna Cosmography first mentions a city named Purocoronavis in the locality. This is thought to be a rendering of Duro-cornov-ium, meaning fort of the Cornovii. The exact location of Durocornovium is disputed, with Tintagel and Carn Brea suggested as possible sites, in later times, Cornwall was known to the Anglo-Saxons as West Wales to distinguish it from North Wales. The name appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 891 as On Corn walum, in the Domesday Book it was referred to as Cornualia and in c.1198 as Cornwal. Other names for the county include a latinisation of the name as Cornubia, the present human history of Cornwall begins with the reoccupation of Britain after the last Ice Age. The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods and it continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age people. The Common Brittonic spoken at the time developed into several distinct tongues

11.
Holiday home
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A holiday cottage, holiday home, or vacation property is accommodation used for holiday vacations. Such properties are typically small homes, such as cottages, that vacationers can rent, the properties may be owned by those using them for a vacation, in which case the term second home applies, or may be rented out to holidaymakers through an agency. In the United Kingdom this type of property is termed a holiday home or holiday cottage, in Australia, a holiday house/home, or weekender, in New Zealand. A second home or vacation home can be a home owners asset as renting it could provide additional income, many vacationers are opting for a single family residence that they can rent on a nightly or weekly basis. In many cases the savings for them are significant compared to hotels or vacation packages, for owners it can be as rewarding as paying the mortgage. As people begin to realize this trend vacation type properties are becoming popular not only for existing homes, renting a holiday cottage gives vacationers the freedom to eat in, eat out, stay in bed all day and generally come and go as they please. In contrast to this, accommodation in a bed and breakfast or hotel usually involves some sort of restriction on the time of day guests need to vacate their rooms for cleaning and so on. Young children and babies can be easily accommodated for in a holiday cottage where the parents do not feel pressure from other families who may not have young children. The fact that guests are on holiday in a home together, Holiday cottages are nowadays found across the length and breadth of the UK, with many destinations from town houses to forests. New Forest Holiday Cottages have become popular in recent years. Many other areas in the UK have seen a growth in the Holiday Cottage industry such as the Lake District, there are typically two routes to renting a holiday cottage. Either direct with an owner, or through the auspices of a holiday cottage agency, several holiday home portals list cottages available direct from the owner, and charge an fee for listing the property. The holiday cottage market in both Canada and the UK is highly competitive – and big business, some business people, including the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, use their luxury real estate for both business and leisure purposes. Many internet services have developed to connect short term rental customers with owners or brokers of vacation properties, Holiday homes and second homes comprise 14% of the housing stock in Snowdonia, Wales, compared to the figure of 1% for the whole of Wales. Only in Gwynedd has the council put in place measures to control the number of holiday homes. But they only control new developments, by withholding permission where consent is likely to raise the figure in any community above 10%, they do not stop anyone from buying a holiday home. The number in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was calculated to be 5. 6% in 2004 and 2006, within a year alone, between 2004 and 2005, the percentage of holiday/second homes in England increased by 3. 3%. There were 29,299 holiday/summer homes in Scotland on the 2001 Scottish Census and this figure was 19,756 in 1981, but the majority of the increase occurred during the 1990s

12.
Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990

13.
Telephony
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The history of telephony is intimately linked to the invention and development of the telephone. The term is used frequently to refer to computer hardware, software, and computer network systems. In this context the technology is referred to as Internet telephony. The first telephones were connected directly in pairs, each user had a separate telephone wired to the locations he might wish to reach. This quickly became inconvenient and unmanageable when people wanted to communicate with more than a few people, the inventions of the telephone exchange provided the solution for establishing telephone connections with any other telephone in service in the local area. Each telephone was connected to the exchange via one wire pair, nearby exchanges in other service areas were connected with trunk lines and long distance service could be established by relaying the calls through multiple exchanges. Initially the switchboards were manually operated by an attendant, a switchboard operator, when a customer cranked a handle on the telephone, it turned on an indicator on the board in front of the operator who would plug the operator headset into that jack and offer service. The caller had to ask for the party by name, later by number. If the called station answered the operator disconnected their headset and completed the station-to-station circuit, trunk calls were made with the assistance of other operators at other exchangers in the network. In modern times, most telephones are plugged into telephone jacks, the jacks are connected by inside wiring to a drop wire which connects the building to a cable. Cables usually bring a number of drop wires from all over a district access network to one wire center or telephone exchange. Most of the exchanges in the world are interconnected through a system of larger switching systems, today, telephony uses digital technology in the provisioning of telephone services and systems. This advancement has reduced costs in communication, and improved the quality of voice services, the first implementation of this, ISDN, permitted all data transport from end-to-end speedily over telephone lines. This service was made much less important due to the ability to provide digital services based on the IP protocol. The integration of software and computer systems is a major development in the evolution of the automated office. The term is used in describing the services of call centers. Its also sometimes used to describe the ability to use your personal computer to initiate, CTI is not a new concept and has been used in the past in large telephone networks, but only dedicated call centers could justify the costs of the required equipment installation. Dialed Number Identification Service on a scale is wide enough for its implementation to bring value to business or residential telephone usage

14.
Personal digital assistant
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A personal digital assistant, also known as a handheld PC, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. PDAs were largely discontinued in the early 2010s after the adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS. Nearly all PDAs have the ability to connect to the Internet, a PDA has an electronic visual display, letting it include a web browser. All models also have audio capabilities, allowing usage as a media player. Most PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide Area Networks, the first PDA was released in 1984 by Psion, the Organizer, followed by Psions Series 3, in 1991. The latter began to resemble the more familiar PDA style, including a full keyboard, the term PDA was first used on January 7,1992 by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. In 1994, IBM introduced the first PDA with full mobile phone functionality, the IBM Simon, then in 1996, Nokia introduced a PDA with full mobile phone functionality, the 9000 Communicator, which became the worlds best-selling PDA. The Communicator spawned a new category of PDAs, the PDA phone, another early entrant in this market was Palm, with a line of PDA products which began in March 1996. A typical PDA has a touchscreen for entering data, a card slot for data storage. PDAs with wireless data connections also typically include an email client, many of the original PDAs, such as the Apple Newton and Palm Pilot, featured a touchscreen for user interaction, having only a few buttons—usually reserved for shortcuts to often-used programs. Some touchscreen PDAs, including Windows Mobile devices, had a stylus to facilitate making selections. The user interacts with the device by tapping the screen to select buttons or issue commands, typical methods of entering text on touchscreen PDAs include, A virtual keyboard, where a keyboard is shown on the touchscreen. Text is entered by tapping the on-screen keyboard with a finger or stylus, an external keyboard connected via USB, Infrared port, or Bluetooth. Some users may choose a chorded keyboard for one-handed use, handwriting recognition, where letters or words are written on the touchscreen, often with a stylus, and the PDA converts the input to text. Recognition and computation of handwritten horizontal and vertical formulas, such as 1 +2 =, stroke recognition allows the user to make a predefined set of strokes on the touchscreen, sometimes in a special input area, representing the various characters to be input. The strokes are often simplified character shapes, making them easier for the device to recognize, one widely known stroke recognition system is Palms Graffiti. Despite research and development projects, end-users experience mixed results with handwriting recognition systems, some find it frustrating and inaccurate, while others are satisfied with the quality of the recognition. Touchscreen PDAs intended for use, such as the BlackBerry and Palm Treo, usually also offer full keyboards and scroll wheels or thumbwheels to facilitate data entry

15.
Richard Branson
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Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group, which more than 400 companies. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age, at the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business, in 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores. Bransons Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic airline, in March 2000, Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace for services to entrepreneurship. For his work in retail, music and transport, his taste for adventure, in 2002 he was named in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. In January 2016, Forbes listed Bransons estimated net worth at $5.2 billion, Branson was born in Blackheath, London, the eldest of three children of Eve Branson, a former ballet dancer and air hostess, and Edward James Branson, a barrister. His grandfather, the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a judge of the High Court of Justice, Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School, a prep school in Berkshire, before briefly attending Cliff View House School in Sussex. His third great-grandfather, John Edward Branson, left England for India in 1793 and his father, Harry Wilkins Branson, later joined him in Madras. On the show Finding Your Roots, Branson was shown to have 3. 9% South Asian DNA, Branson attended Stowe School, an independent school in Buckinghamshire until the age of sixteen. Branson has dyslexia and had poor performance, on his last day at school, his headmaster, Robert Drayson. Bransons parents were supportive of his endeavours from an early age, One of her most successful ventures was building and selling wooden tissue boxes and wastepaper bins. Branson started his business from a church where he ran Student magazine. Branson interviewed several prominent personalities of the late 1960s for the magazine including Mick Jagger, Branson advertised popular records in The Student and it was an overnight success. Trading under the name Virgin, he records for considerably less than the High Street outlets. Branson once said, There is no point in starting your own business unless you do it out of a sense of frustration, the name Virgin was suggested by one of Bransons early employees because they were all new at business. At the time, many products were sold under restrictive marketing agreements that limited discounting, Branson eventually started a record shop in Oxford Street in London. In 1971, Branson was questioned in connection with the selling of records in Virgin stores that had been declared export stock, the matter was never brought before a court because Branson agreed to repay any unpaid tax and a fine

16.
Luxury real estate
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Also, the business of real estate, the profession of buying, selling, or renting land, buildings or housing. It is a term used in jurisdictions whose legal system is derived from English common law, such as India, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Pakistan, Australia. Residential real estate may contain either a family or multifamily structure. Residences can be classified by, if, and how they are connected to neighbouring residences, different types of housing tenure can be used for the same physical type. For example, connected residents might be owned by an entity and leased out. Major categories in North America and Europe Attached / multi-unit dwellings Apartment or Flat – An individual unit in a multi-unit building, the boundaries of the apartment are generally defined by a perimeter of locked or lockable doors. Often seen in apartment buildings. Multi-family house – Often seen in multi-story detached buildings, where each floor is an apartment or unit. Terraced house – A number of single or multi-unit buildings in a row with shared walls. Condominium – Building or complex, similar to apartments, owned by individuals, common grounds and common areas within the complex are owned and shared jointly. There are townhouse or rowhouse style condominiums as well, semi-detached dwellings Duplex – Two units with one shared wall. Single-family detached house Portable dwellings Mobile homes – Potentially a full-time residence which can be movable on wheels, houseboats – A floating home Tents – Usually very temporary, with roof and walls consisting only of fabric-like material. The size of an apartment or house can be described in square feet or meters, in the United States, this includes the area of living space, excluding the garage and other non-living spaces. It can be described roughly by the number of rooms. A studio apartment has a bedroom with no living room. A one-bedroom apartment has a living or dining room separate from the bedroom, Two bedroom, three bedroom, and larger units are common. Major categories in India and the Asian Subcontinent Co-operative Housing Societies Condominiums Chawls Villas Havelis The size is measured in Gaz, Quila, Marla, Beegha, and acre. See List of house types for a listing of housing types and layouts, real estate trends for shifts in the market

17.
Isles of Scilly
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The Isles of Scilly are an archipelago off the south western tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. It is the southernmost location in England and the United Kingdom, the population of all the islands at the 2011 census was 2,203. Scilly forms part of the county of Cornwall, and some services are combined with those of Cornwall. However, since 1890, the islands have had a local authority. Since the passing of the Isles of Scilly Order 1930, this authority has had the status of a county council, the adjective Scillonian is sometimes used for people or things related to the archipelago. The Duchy of Cornwall owns most of the land on the islands. Tourism is a part of the local economy, along with agriculture — particularly the production of cut flowers. Scilly has been inhabited since the Stone Age, and until the early 20th century its history had been one of subsistence living, farming and fishing continue, but the main industry now is tourism. The islands may correspond to the Cassiterides visited by the Phoenicians, however, the archipelago itself does not contain much tin—it may be that the islands were used as a staging post. It is likely that until recent times the islands were much larger. The word Ennor is a contraction of the Old Cornish En Noer, remains of a prehistoric farm have been found on Nornour, which is now a small rocky skerry far too small for farming. There once was an Iron Age Britain community here that extended into Roman times and this community was likely formed by immigrants from Brittany, probably the Veneti who were active in the tin trade that originated in mining activity in Cornwall and Devon. At certain low tides the sea becomes shallow enough for people to walk between some of the islands and this is possibly one of the sources for stories of drowned lands, e. g. Lyonesse. Ancient field walls are visible below the tide line off some of the islands. Some of the Cornish language place names appear to reflect past shorelines. The whole of southern England has been sinking in opposition to post-glacial rebound in Scotland, this has caused the rias on the southern Cornish coast, e. g. River Fal. Scilly has been identified as the place of exile of two heretical 4th century bishops, Instantius and Tiberianus, who were followers of Priscillian, in 995, Olaf Tryggvason became King Olaf I of Norway. 960, Olaf had raided various European cities and fought in several wars, in 986 he met a Christian seer on the Isles of Scilly

18.
Cumbria
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Cumbria is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbrias county town is Carlisle, in the north of the county, the county of Cumbria consists of six districts, and in 2008 had a population of just under half a million. Cumbria is one of the most sparsely populated counties in the United Kingdom, a large area of the south east of the county is within the Yorkshire Dales National Park while the east of the county fringes the North Pennines AONB. Much of Cumbria is mountainous, and it contains every peak in England over 3,000 feet above sea level, with Scafell Pike at 3,209 feet being the highest point of England. An upland, coastal, and rural area, Cumbrias history is characterised by invasions, migration, notable historic sites in Cumbria include Carlisle Castle, Furness Abbey, Hardknott Roman Fort, Brough Castle and Hadrians Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. D. Based on inscriptional evidence from the area, the Roman civitas of the Carvetii seems to have covered portions of Cumbria, the names Cumbria, Cymru, Cambria, and Cumberland are derived from the name these people gave themselves, *kombroges in Common Brittonic, which originally meant compatriots. In the Early Middle Ages, Cumberland formed the core of the Brittonic kingdom of Rheged, for the rest of the first millennium, Cumbria was contested by several entities who warred over the area, including the Brythonic Kingdom of Strathclyde and the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. Most of modern-day Cumbria was a principality in the Kingdom of Scotland at the time of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, in 1092 Cumberland was invaded by William II and incorporated into England. There were at least three sieges of Carlisle fought between England and Scotland, and two sieges during the Jacobite risings. In particular, the west-coast towns of Workington, Millom and Barrow-in-Furness saw large iron and steel mills develop, Kendal, Keswick and Carlisle all became mill towns, with textiles, pencils and biscuits among the products manufactured in the region. Later, the childrens writer Beatrix Potter also wrote in the region and became a major landowner and its strategic authority is Cumbria County Council. Local papers The Westmorland Gazette and Cumberland and Westmorland Herald continue to use the name of their historic county, other publications, such as local government promotional material, describe the area as Cumbria, as do the Lake District National Park Authority and most visitors. Cumbria is the most northwesterly county of England, the northernmost and southernmost points in Cumbria are just west of Deadwater, Northumberland and South Walney respectively. Kirkby Stephen and St Bees Head are the most easterly and westerly points of the county, at 978 metres Scafell Pike is the highest point in Cumbria and in England. Windermere is the largest natural lake in England, the Lancaster Canal runs from Preston into South Cumbria and is partly in use. The Ulverston Canal which once reached to Morecambe Bay is maintained although it was closed in 1945, the Solway Coast and Arnside and Silverdale AONBs lie in the lowland areas of the county, to the north and south respectively. Cumbria is bordered by the English counties of Northumberland, County Durham, North Yorkshire, Lancashire, the boundaries are along the Irish Sea to Morecambe Bay in the west, and along the Pennines to the east

19.
Dorset
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Dorset /ˈdɔːrsᵻt/ is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the county, which is governed by Dorset County Council. Covering an area of 2,653 square kilometres, Dorset borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, the county town is Dorchester which is in the south. After the reorganisation of government in 1974 the countys border was extended eastward to incorporate the Hampshire towns of Bournemouth. Around half of the lives in the South East Dorset conurbation. The county has a history of human settlement stretching back to the Neolithic era. The Romans conquered Dorsets indigenous Celtic tribe, and during the early Middle Ages, the first recorded Viking raid on the British Isles occurred in Dorset during the eighth century, and the Black Death entered England at Melcombe Regis in 1348. During the Second World War, Dorset was heavily involved in the preparations for the invasion of Normandy, the former was the sailing venue in the 2012 Summer Olympics, and both have clubs or hire venues for sailing, Cornish pilot gig rowing, sea kayaking and powerboating. Dorset has a varied landscape featuring broad elevated chalk downs, steep limestone ridges, over half the county is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Three-quarters of its coastline is part of the Jurassic Coast Natural World Heritage Site due to its geological and it features notable landforms such as Lulworth Cove, the Isle of Portland, Chesil Beach and Durdle Door. Agriculture was traditionally the major industry of Dorset but is now in decline, there are no motorways in Dorset but a network of A roads cross the county and two railway main lines connect to London. Dorset has ports at Poole, Weymouth and Portland, and an international airport, the county has a variety of museums, theatres and festivals, and is host to one of Europes largest outdoor shows. It is the birthplace of Thomas Hardy, who used the county as the setting of his novels. Dorset derives its name from the county town of Dorchester, the Romans established the settlement in the 1st century and named it Durnovaria which was a Latinised version of a Common Brittonic word possibly meaning place with fist-sized pebbles. It is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in AD845 and in the 10th century the countys archaic name, the first human visitors to Dorset were Mesolithic hunters, from around 8000 BC. The first permanent Neolithic settlers appeared around 3000 BC and were responsible for the creation of the Dorset Cursus, from 2800 BC onwards Bronze Age farmers cleared Dorsets woodlands for agricultural use and Dorsets high chalk hills provided a location for numerous round barrows. During the Iron Age, the British tribe known as the Durotriges established a series of forts across the county—most notably Maiden Castle which is one of the largest in Europe. The Romans arrived in Dorset during their conquest of Britain in AD43, Maiden Castle was captured by a Roman legion under the command of Vespasian, and the Roman settlement of Durnovaria was established nearby

20.
Norfolk
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Norfolk /ˈnɔːrfək/ is a county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the west and north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea and, to the north-west, The Wash. With an area of 2,074 square miles and a population of 859,400, of the countys population, 40% live in four major built up areas, Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn and Thetford. The Broads is a network of rivers and lakes in the east of the county, the area is not a National Park although it is marketed as such. It has similar status to a park, and is protected by the Broads Authority. Norfolk was settled in times, with camps along the higher land in the west. A Brythonic tribe, the Iceni, inhabited the county from the 1st century BC to the end of the 1st century AD, the Iceni revolted against the Roman invasion in AD47, and again in 60 led by Boudica. The crushing of the second opened the county to the Romans. During the Roman era roads and ports were constructed throughout the county, situated on the east coast, Norfolk was vulnerable to invasions from Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and forts were built to defend against the Angles and Saxons. Norfolk, Suffolk and several adjacent areas became the kingdom of East Anglia, the influence of the Early English settlers can be seen in the many place names ending in -ton and -ham. Endings such as -by and -thorpe are also common, indicating Danish place names, in the 9th century the region came under attack. In the centuries before the Norman Conquest the wetlands of the east of the county began to be converted to farmland, and settlements grew in these areas. Migration into East Anglia must have high, by the time of the Domesday Book survey it was one of the most densely populated parts of the British Isles. During the high and late Middle Ages the county developed arable agriculture, the economy was in decline by the time of the Black Death, which dramatically reduced the population in 1349. During the English Civil War Norfolk was largely Parliamentarian, the economy and agriculture of the region declined somewhat. During the Industrial Revolution Norfolk developed little industry except in Norwich which was an addition to the railway network. In the 20th century the county developed a role in aviation, during the Second World War agriculture rapidly intensified, and it has remained very intensive since, with the establishment of large fields for growing cereals and oilseed rape. Norfolks low-lying land and easily eroded cliffs, many of which are chalk and clay, make it vulnerable to the sea, the low-lying section of coast between Kelling and Lowestoft Ness in Suffolk is currently managed by the Environment Agency to protect the Broads from sea flooding

21.
Devon
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Devon, also known as Devonshire, which was formerly its common and official name, is a county of England, reaching from the Bristol Channel in the north to the English Channel in the south. It is part of South West England, bounded by Cornwall to the west, Somerset to the northeast, combined as a ceremonial county, Devons area is 6,707 km2 and its population is about 1.1 million. Devon derives its name from Dumnonia, which, during the British Iron Age, Roman Britain, the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain resulted in the partial assimilation of Dumnonia into the Kingdom of Wessex during the eighth and ninth centuries. The western boundary with Cornwall was set at the River Tamar by King Æthelstan in 936, Devon was constituted as a shire of the Kingdom of England thereafter. The north and south coasts of Devon each have both cliffs and sandy shores, and the bays contain seaside resorts, fishing towns. The inland terrain is rural, generally hilly, and has a low density in comparison to many other parts of England. Dartmoor is the largest open space in southern England at 954 km2, to the north of Dartmoor are the Culm Measures and Exmoor. In the valleys and lowlands of south and east Devon the soil is fertile, drained by rivers including the Exe, the Culm, the Teign, the Dart. As well as agriculture, much of the economy of Devon is linked with tourism, in the Brittonic, Devon is known as Welsh, Dyfnaint, Breton, Devnent and Cornish, Dewnens, each meaning deep valleys. One erroneous theory is that the suffix is due to a mistake in the making of the original letters patent for the Duke of Devonshire. However, there are references to Defenascire in Anglo-Saxon texts from before 1000 AD, the term Devonshire may have originated around the 8th century, when it changed from Dumnonia to Defenascir. Kents Cavern in Torquay had produced human remains from 30–40,000 years ago, Dartmoor is thought to have been occupied by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer peoples from about 6000 BC. The Romans held the area under occupation for around 350 years. Devon became a frontier between Brittonic and Anglo-Saxon Wessex, and it was absorbed into Wessex by the mid 9th century. This suggests the Anglo-Saxon migration into Devon was limited rather than a movement of people. The border with Cornwall was set by King Æthelstan on the east bank of the River Tamar in 936 AD, the arrival of William of Orange to launch the Glorious Revolution of 1688 took place at Brixham. Devon has produced tin, copper and other metals from ancient times, Devons tin miners enjoyed a substantial degree of independence through Devons Stannary Parliament, which dates back to the 12th century. The last recorded sitting was in 1748, agriculture has been an important industry in Devon since the 19th century

22.
East Sussex
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East Sussex /ˈsʌsᵻks/ is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent to the north and east, Surrey to the north west and West Sussex to the west, archaeological remains are plentiful, especially in the upland areas. The areas position on the coast has also meant that there were invaders, including the Romans. Earlier industries have included fishing, iron-making, and the trade, all of which have declined. Sussex is traditionally sub-divided into six rapes, from the 12th century the three eastern rapes together and the three western rapes together had separate quarter sessions, with the county town of the three eastern rapes being Lewes. This situation was formalised by Parliament in 1865, and the two parts were made into administrative counties, each with distinct elected county councils in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, in East Sussex there were also three self-administered county boroughs, Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. In 1974 East Sussex was made a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county, at the same time the western boundary was altered, so that the Mid Sussex region was transferred to the county of West Sussex. In 1997, Brighton and Hove became a unitary authority, it was granted city status in 2000. East Sussex is divided into five local government districts, three are larger, rural, districts are, Lewes, Wealden, and Rother. Eastbourne and Hastings are mainly urban areas, the rural districts are further subdivided into civil parishes. To the north lie parallel valleys and ridges, the highest of which is the Weald itself, the sandstones and clays meet the sea at Hastings, the Downs, at Beachy Head. East Sussex, like most counties by the south coast, has an average total of around 1,750 hours of sunshine per year. This is much higher than the UKs average of about 1,340 hours of sunshine a year, the relief of the county reflects the geology. The chalk uplands of the South Downs occupies the coastal strip between Brighton and Eastbourne, there are two river gaps, the Rivers Ouse and Cuckmere. The Seven Sisters, where the Downs meet the sea, are the remnants of dry valleys cut into the chalk, to the east of Beachy Head lie the marshlands of the Pevensey Levels, formerly flooded by the sea but now enclosed within a deposited beach. At Bexhill the land begins to rise again where the sands and clays of the Weald meet the sea, further east are the Pett Levels, more marshland, beyond which is the estuary of the River Rother. On the far side of the estuary are the dunes of Camber Sands, the highest point of the Downs within the county is Ditchling Beacon, at 814 feet, it is termed a Marilyn. The Weald occupies the northern borderlands of the county, between the Downs and Weald is a narrow stretch of lower lying land, many of the rivers and streams occupying this area originate in the Weald

23.
Northumberland
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Northumberland is a county in North East England. The northernmost county of England, it borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham and Tyne and Wear to the south, to the east is the North Sea coastline with a 64-mile long distance path. The county town is Alnwick although the county council is in Morpeth, the northernmost point of Northumberland and England is at Marshall Meadows Bay. The county of Northumberland included Newcastle upon Tyne until 1400, when the city became a county of itself, Northumberland expanded greatly in the Tudor period, annexing Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1482, Tynedale in 1495, Tynemouth in 1536, Redesdale around 1542 and Hexhamshire in 1572. Islandshire, Bedlingtonshire and Norhamshire were incorporated into Northumberland in 1844, Tynemouth and other settlements in North Tyneside were transferred to Tyne and Wear in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Lying on the Anglo-Scottish border, Northumberland has been the site of a number of battles, the county is noted for its undeveloped landscape of high moorland, now largely protected as the Northumberland National Park. Northumberland is the most sparsely populated county in England, with only 62 people per square kilometre, Northumberland originally meant the land of the people living north of the River Humber. The present county is the core of that land, and has long been a frontier zone between England and Scotland. During Roman occupation of Britain, most of the present county lay north of Hadrians Wall, the Roman road Dere Street crosses the county from Corbridge over high moorland west of the Cheviot Hills into present Scotland to Trimontium. Northumberland has a rich prehistory with many instances of art, hillforts such as Yeavering Bell and stone circles like the Goatstones. Most of the area was occupied by the Brythonic-Celtic Votadini people, with another large tribe, later, the region of present-day Northumberland formed the core of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which united with Deira to form the kingdom of Northumbria in the 7th century. Lindisfarne saw the production of the Lindisfarne Gospels and it became the home of St Cuthbert, bamburgh is the historic capital of Northumberland, the royal castle from before the unification of the Kingdoms of England under the monarchs of the House of Wessex in the 10th century. The Earldom of Northumberland was briefly held by the Scottish royal family by marriage between 1139–1157 and 1215–1217, Scotland relinquished all claims to the region as part of the Treaty of York. The Earls of Northumberland once wielded significant power in English affairs because, as powerful and militaristic Marcher Lords, Northumberland has a history of revolt and rebellion against the government, as seen in the Rising of the North against Elizabeth I of England. These revolts were led by the Earls of Northumberland, the Percy family. Shakespeare makes one of the Percys, the dashing Harry Hotspur, after the Restoration of 1660, the county was a centre for Roman Catholicism in England, as well as a focus of Jacobite support. Northumberland was long a wild county, where outlaws and Border Reivers hid from the law, however, the frequent cross-border skirmishes and accompanying local lawlessness largely subsided after the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England under King James I and VI in 1603. Northumberland played a key role in the Industrial Revolution from the 18th century on, many coal mines operated in Northumberland until the widespread closures in the 1970s and 1980s

24.
North Yorkshire
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North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan county and larger ceremonial county in England. It is located primarily in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber, created by the Local Government Act 1972, it covers an area of 8,654 square kilometres, making it the largest county in England. The majority of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors lie within North Yorkshires boundaries, the largest settlements are York, Middlesbrough, Harrogate and Scarborough, the county town, Northallerton, has a population of 16,832. The area under the control of the county council, or shire county, is divided into a number of local government districts, Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Ryedale, Scarborough, the changes were planned to be implemented no later than 1 April 2009. This was rejected on 25 July 2007 so the County Council, the largest settlement in the administrative county is Harrogate, the second largest is Scarborough, while in the ceremonial county, the largest is York. The largest urban area within the county is the Middlesbrough built-up area sub-division of Teesside. Uniquely for a district in England, Stockton-on-Tees is split between North Yorkshire and County Durham for this purpose, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Redcar and Cleveland boroughs form part of the North East England region. The ceremonial county area, including the authorities, borders East Riding of Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria. The geology of North Yorkshire is closely reflected in its landscape, within the county are the North York Moors and most of the Yorkshire Dales, two of eleven areas of countryside within England and Wales to be officially designated as national parks. Between the North York Moors in the east and the Pennine Hills in the west lie the Vales of Mowbray, the Tees Lowlands lie to the north of the North York Moors and the Vale of Pickering lies to the south. Its eastern border is the North sea coast, the highest point is Whernside, on the Cumbrian border, at 736 metres. The two major rivers in the county are the River Swale and the River Ure, the Swale and the Ure form the River Ouse which flows through York and into the Humber estuary. The River Tees forms part of the border between North Yorkshire and County Durham and flows from upper Teesdale to Middlesbrough and Stockton and to the coast, North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan county that operates a cabinet-style council, North Yorkshire County Council. The full council of 72 elects a council leader, who in turn appoints up to 9 more councillors to form the executive cabinet, the cabinet is responsible for making decisions in the County. The county council have their offices in the County Hall in Northallerton, the county is affluent and has above average house prices. Unemployment is below average for the UK and claimants of Job Seekers Allowance is also very low compared to the rest of the UK at 2. 7%, agriculture is an important industry, as are mineral extraction and power generation. The county also has high technology, service and tourism sectors. This is a chart of trend of gross value added for North Yorkshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling

25.
West Sussex
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West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering East Sussex to the east, Hampshire to the west and Surrey to the north, and to the south the English Channel. Chichester in the southwest is the county town and only city in West Sussex, with the largest towns being Crawley, Worthing, West Sussex has a range of scenery, including wealden, downland and coastal. The highest point of the county is Blackdown, at 280 metres and it has a number of stately homes including Goodwood, Petworth House and Uppark and also castles such as Arundel Castle and Bramber Castle. Over half the county is protected countryside, offering walking, cycling, although the name Sussex, derived from the Old English Sūþsēaxe, is from the Saxon period between AD477 to 1066, the history of human habitation in Sussex goes back to the Old Stone Age. The oldest hominin remains known in Britain were found at Eartham Pit, Sussex has been occupied since those times and has succumbed to various invasions and migrations throughout its long history. Prehistoric monuments include the Devils Jumps, a group of Bronze Age burial mounds, the Romans used the Weald for iron production on an industrial scale. The foundation story is regarded as somewhat of a myth by most historians, the Kingdom of Sussex was absorbed into Wessex as an earldom and became the county of Sussex. With its origins in the kingdom of Sussex, the county of Sussex was traditionally divided into six units known as rapes. By the 16th century, the three western rapes were grouped together informally, having their own separate Quarter Sessions and these were administered by a separate county council from 1888, the county of Sussex being divided for administrative purposes into the administrative counties of East and West Sussex. In 1974, West Sussex was made a ceremonial county with the coming into force of the Local Government Act 1972. At the same time a part of the eastern rape of Lewes was transferred into West Sussex. Until 1834 provision for the poor and destitute in West Sussex was made at parish level, from 1835 until 1948 eleven Poor Law Unions, each catering for several parishes, took on the job. Most settlements in West Sussex are either along the south coast or in Mid Sussex, the town of Crawley is the largest in the county with an estimated population of 106,600. The coastal settlement of Worthing closely follows with a population of 104,600, the seaside resort of Bognor Regis and market town Horsham are both large towns. Chichester, the county town, has a cathedral and city status, much of the coastal town population is part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. Rustington and Southwater are the next largest settlements in the county, there are several more towns in West Sussex, although they are of similar size to other villages. The smaller towns of the county are Arundel, Midhurst, Petworth, Selsey, the larger villages are Billingshurst, Copthorne, Crawley Down, Cuckfield, Henfield, Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint, Lindfield, Pulborough and Storrington. The current total population of the county makes up 1. 53% of Englands population, West Sussex is bordered by Hampshire to the west, Surrey to the north and East Sussex to the east

26.
Suffolk
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Suffolk is an East Anglian county of historic origin in England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west, the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich, other important towns include Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket and Felixstowe, the county is low-lying with very few hills, and is largely arable land with the wetlands of the Broads in the north. The Suffolk Coast and Heaths are an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, by the fifth century, the Angles had established control of the region. The Angles later became the folk and the south folk. Suffolk and several adjacent areas became the kingdom of East Anglia, Suffolk was originally divided into four separate Quarter Sessions divisions. In 1860, the number of divisions was reduced to two, the eastern division was administered from Ipswich and the western from Bury St Edmunds. Under the Local Government Act 1888, the two divisions were made the administrative counties of East Suffolk and West Suffolk, Ipswich became a county borough. A few Essex parishes were added to Suffolk, Ballingdon-with-Brundon and parts of Haverhill. On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, East Suffolk, West Suffolk, the county was divided into several local government districts, Babergh, Forest Heath, Ipswich, Mid Suffolk, St. Edmundsbury, Suffolk Coastal, and Waveney. This act also transferred some land near Great Yarmouth to Norfolk, in 2007, the Department for Communities and Local Government referred Ipswich Borough Councils bid to become a new unitary authority to the Boundary Committee. The Boundary Committee consulted local bodies and reported in favour of the proposal and it was not, however, approved by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Beginning in February 2008, the Boundary Committee again reviewed local government in the county, West Suffolk, like nearby East Cambridgeshire, is renowned for archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Bronze Age artefacts have been found in the area between Mildenhall and West Row, in Eriswell and in Lakenheath, other finds include traces of cremations and barrows. The majority of agriculture in Suffolk is either arable or mixed, Farm sizes vary from anything around 80 acres to over 8,000. Soil types vary from clays to light sands. The continuing importance of agriculture in the county is reflected in the Suffolk Show, although latterly somewhat changed in nature, this remains primarily an agricultural show. Below is a chart of regional gross value added of Suffolk at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling, well-known companies in Suffolk include Greene King and Branston Pickle in Bury St Edmunds

27.
Snowdonia
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Snowdonia is a mountainous region in north Wales and a national park of 823 square miles in area. It was the first to be designated of the three parks in Wales, in 1951. The English name for the area derives from Snowdon, which is the highest mountain in Wales at 3,560 ft, in Welsh, the area is named Eryri. The term ‘Eryri’ first appeared in a manuscript in the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, in the Middle Ages the title Prince of Wales and Lord of Snowdonia was used by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, his grandfather Llywelyn Fawr used the title Prince of north Wales and Lord of Snowdonia. This is apparent in books published prior to 1951, such as the classic travelogue Wild Wales by George Borrow, F. J. North, as editor of the book Snowdonia, states When the Committee delineated provisional boundaries, they included areas some distance beyond Snowdonia proper. The traditional Snowdonia thus includes the ranges of Snowdon and its satellites, the Glyderau, the Carneddau and it does not include the hills to the south of Maentwrog. As Eryri, this area has a place in Welsh history, tradition. Snowdonia National Park was established in 1951 as the national park in Britain, following the Peak District. It covers 827 square miles, and has 37 miles of coastline, the park is governed by the Snowdonia National Park Authority, which is made up of local government and Welsh representatives, and its main offices are at Penrhyndeudraeth. Unlike national parks in countries, Snowdonia are made up of both public and private lands under central planning authority. The makeup of land ownership at Snowdonia is as follows, More than 26,000 people live within the park,58. 6% of the population could speak Welsh in 2011. While most of the land is open or mountainous land. Since the local government re-organisation of 1998, the park partly in the county of Gwynedd. Unusually, Snowdonia National Park has a hole in the middle, around the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog and this was deliberately excluded from the park when it was set up to allow the development of new light industry to replace the reduced slate industry. The Snowdonia Society is a charity formed in 1967. It is a group of people with an interest in the area. Amory Lovins led the successful 1970s opposition to stop Rio Tinto digging up the area for a massive mine. Research indicates that there were 3.67 million visitors to Snowdonia National Park in 2013, total tourist expenditure was £433.6 million in 2013

28.
Wales
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Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon. The country lies within the temperate zone and has a changeable. Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudds death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of Englands conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism, Welsh national feeling grew over the century, Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, two-thirds of the population live in south Wales, mainly in and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Now that the countrys traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales economy depends on the sector, light and service industries. Wales 2010 gross value added was £45.5 billion, over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the land of song, Rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity and an expression of national consciousness. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Celtic Britons in particular, the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, in particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to the Welsh. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century and it is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of names, Cambrian, Cambric and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales, Welsh

29.
Gwynedd
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Gwynedd is an area in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. As a local government area, it is the second biggest in Wales in terms of geographical area, a majority of the population are Welsh-speaking. The name Gwynedd is also used for a county, covering the two local government areas of Gwynedd and the Isle of Anglesey. Culturally and historically, the name can also be used for most of North Wales, the current area is 2,548 square km with a population as measured in the 2011 Census of 121,874. Gwynedd is the home of Bangor University and includes the scenic Llŷn Peninsula, the largest settlements are Bangor, Caernarfon, Bethesda and Ffestiniog. The largest settlement in the south is Tywyn, in the past, historians such as J. E. Lloyd assumed that the Celtic source of the word Gwynedd meant collection of tribes - the same root as the Irish fine, meaning tribe. Perhaps *u̯en-, u̯enə is the Indo-European stem, the Irish settled in NW Wales, and in Dyfed, at the end of the Roman era. Venedotia was the Latin form, and in Penmachno there is a stone from c. AD500 which reads, Cantiori Hic Iacit Venedotis, the name was retained by the Brythons when the kingdom of Gwynedd was formed in the 5th century, and it remained until the invasion of Edward I. This historical name was revived when the new county was formed in 1974, Gwynedd was an independent kingdom from the end of the Roman period until the 13th century, when it was conquered by England. The modern Gwynedd was one of eight Welsh counties created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, the county was divided into five districts, Aberconwy, Arfon, Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Anglesey. The remainder of the county was constituted as an area, with the name Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire. As one of its first actions, the Council renamed itself Gwynedd on 2 April 1996, the present Gwynedd local government area is governed by Gwynedd Council. As a unitary authority, the modern entity no longer has any districts, the pre-1996 boundaries were retained as a preserved county for a few purposes such as the Lieutenancy. A Gwynedd Constabulary was formed in 1950 by the merger of the Anglesey, a further amalgamation took place in the 1960s when Gwynedd Constabulary was merged with the Flintshire and Denbighshire county forces, retaining the name Gwynedd. To prevent confusion, the Gwynedd Constabulary was therefore renamed the North Wales Police, the Snowdonia National Park was formed in 1951. After the 1974 local authority reorganisation, the park entirely within the boundaries of Gwynedd. After the 1996 local government reorganisation, part of the park fell under Conwy County Borough, the county has a mixed economy

30.
Argyll and Bute
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Argyll and Bute is both one of 32 unitary authority council areas and a lieutenancy area in Scotland. The administrative centre for the area is in Lochgilphead. Argyll and Bute covers the second largest administrative area of any Scottish council, the council area adjoins those of Highland, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire. Its border runs through Loch Lomond, the present council area was created in 1996, when it was carved out of the Strathclyde region, which was a two-tier local government region of 19 districts, created in 1975. Argyll and Bute merged the existing Argyll and Bute district and one ward of the Dumbarton district. The Dumbarton ward, called Helensburgh and Lomond, included the burgh of Helensburgh and consisted of an area to the west of Loch Lomond, north of the Firth of Clyde and mostly east of Loch Long. The council area can also be described by reference to divisions of the counties which were abolished in 1975, the council area includes most of the county of Argyll, part of the county of Bute and part of the county of Dunbartonshire. The later scenes of the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love were filmed around the lochs and hills of Argyll, the Colintraive in Cowal to Rhubodach on the Isle of Bute route, across the Kyles of Bute, is operated by Caledonian MacBrayne. The Portavadie in Cowal to Tarbert on the Kintyre Peninsula route, as a result of the investigation, a council employee was suspended for setting up fake social media accounts to monitor what was being said about the council. The councils own investigation later confirmed it had no evidence of any form of spying or covert surveillance having been carried out by any employee within the councils communication team. In June 2012, the council was criticised for banning a local primary student, Martha Payne. The blog, NeverSeconds, had been praised by the celebrity chef, on the day the story broke, the blog had raised over £40,000. After an initial statement from the defending the decision, the ban was subsequently overturned by council leader. In November 2012 a book written by David Payne, father of Neverseconds blogger Martha Payne, revealed the background to the attempt to censor. The book states about the council, My anger and frustration at Argyll, thinly veiled attacks on our parenting on national radio and an abusive phonecall stood out as examples of a public body sick to the very top. Complaints via the proper procedures and through elected councillors had no visible changes. Far from being contrite they seemed to take a pride in being untouchable, Argyll and Bute Council election,2012 Censorship in the United Kingdom List of places in Argyll and Bute Gaelic place names of Scotland Argyll and Bute Council Argyll and Bute at DMOZ

31.
Eilean Siar
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The Outer Hebrides, also known as the Western Isles, Innse Gall or the Long Isle or Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The islands are geographically coextensive with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. They form part of the Hebrides, separated from the Scottish mainland and from the Inner Hebrides by the waters of the Minch, the Little Minch, Scottish Gaelic is the predominant spoken language, although in a few areas English speakers form a majority. Most of the islands have a formed from ancient metamorphic rocks. The 15 inhabited islands have a population of 27,100. From Barra Head to the Butt of Lewis is roughly 210 kilometres, There are various important prehistoric structures, many of which pre-date the first written references to the islands by Roman and Greek authors. The Western Isles became part of the Norse kingdom of the Suðreyjar, control of the islands was then held by clan chiefs, principal of whom were the MacLeods, MacDonalds, Mackenzies and MacNeils. The Highland Clearances of the 19th century had an effect on many communities. Much of the land is now under control and commercial activity is based on tourism, crofting, fishing. Sea transport is crucial and a variety of services operate between the islands and to mainland Scotland. Modern navigation systems now minimise the dangers but in the past the stormy seas have claimed many ships, religion, music and sport are important aspects of local culture, and there are numerous designated conservation areas to protect the natural environment. The islands form an archipelago whose major islands are Lewis and Harris, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, and Barra. Lewis and Harris has an area of 217,898 hectares and is the largest island in Scotland and it incorporates Lewis in the north and Harris in the south, both of which are frequently referred to as individual islands, although they are connected by land. The island does not have a name in either English or Gaelic. The largest islands are deeply indented by arms of the sea such as Loch Ròg, Loch Seaforth, There are also more than 7,500 freshwater lochs in the Outer Hebrides, about 24% of the total for the whole of Scotland. North and South Uist and Lewis in particular have landscapes with a percentage of fresh water. Harris has fewer large bodies of water but has innumerable small lochans, Loch Langavat on Lewis is 11 kilometres long, and has several large islands in its midst, including Eilean Mòr. Although Loch Suaineabhal has only 25% of Loch Langavats surface area, of Loch Sgadabhagh on North Uist it has been said that there is probably no other loch in Britain which approaches Loch Scadavay in irregularity and complexity of outline

32.
Scottish Highlands
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The Highlands are a historic region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, the term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands, the Scottish Gaelic name of A Ghàidhealtachd literally means the place of the Gaels and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands. The area is sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region. At 9.1 per km2 in 2012, the density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotlands as a whole, comparable with that of Bolivia, Chad. The Highland Council is the body for much of the Highlands. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth & Kinross, Stirling. The Scottish highlands is the area in the British Isles to have the Taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest. Between the 15th century and the 20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent, historically, the Highland line distinguished the two Scottish cultures. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided, there was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Tartan had largely abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. The period of the Napoleonic wars brought prosperity, optimism, the economy grew thanks to wages paid in industries such as kelping, fisheries, and weaving, as well as large-scale infrastructure spending such as the Caledonian Canal project. On the East Coast, farmlands were improved, and high prices for cattle brought money to the area, Service in the Army was also attractive to young men from the Highlands, who sent pay home and retired there with their army pensions. This prosperity ended after 1815, and long-term negative factors began to undermine the position of the poor tenant farmers, who typically rented a few acres

33.
Orkney Islands
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Orkney /ˈɔːrkni/, also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of Great Britain. Orkney is 16 kilometres north of the coast of Caithness and comprises approximately 70 islands, the largest island Mainland is often referred to as the Mainland. It has an area of 523 square kilometres, making it the sixth-largest Scottish island, the largest settlement and administrative centre is Kirkwall. A form of the dates to the pre-Roman era and the islands have been inhabited for at least 8500 years, originally occupied by Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes. Orkney was invaded and forcibly annexed by Norway in 875 and settled by the Norse, the Scottish Parliament then re-annexed the earldom to the Scottish Crown in 1472, following the failed payment of a dowry for James IIIs bride Margaret of Denmark. Orkney contains some of the oldest and best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe, Orkney is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, a constituency of the Scottish Parliament, a lieutenancy area, and a historic county. The local council is Orkney Islands Council, one of only three Councils in Scotland with a majority of elected members who are independents. In addition to the Mainland, most of the islands are in two groups, the North and South Isles, all of which have a geological base of Old Red Sandstone. The climate is mild and the soils are fertile, most of the land being farmed. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy, the significant wind and marine energy resources are of growing importance, and the island generates more than its total yearly electricity demand using renewables. The local people are known as Orcadians and have a distinctive Orcadian dialect of Scots, there is an abundance of marine and avian wildlife. Pytheas of Massilia visited Britain – probably sometime between 322 and 285 BC – and described it as triangular in shape, with a northern tip called Orcas and this may have referred to Dunnet Head, from which Orkney is visible. Speakers of Old Irish referred to the islands as Insi Orc island of the pigs, the archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized prepositional case ending. The Anglo-Saxon monk Bede refers to the islands as Orcades insulae in his seminal work Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Norwegian settlers arriving from the ninth century reinterpreted orc as the Old Norse orkn seal. The plural suffix -jar was later removed in English leaving the modern name Orkney, according to the Historia Norwegiæ, Orkney was named after an earl called Orkan. The Norse knew Mainland Orkney as Megenland Mainland or as Hrossey Horse Island, the island is sometimes referred to as Pomona, a name that stems from a sixteenth-century mistranslation by George Buchanan, which has rarely been used locally. A charred hazelnut shell, recovered in 2007 during excavations in Tankerness on the Mainland has been dated to 6820–6660 BC indicating the presence of Mesolithic nomadic tribes

34.
Shetland Islands
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Shetland /ˈʃɛtlənd/, also called the Shetland Islands, is a subarctic archipelago that lies northeast of the island of Great Britain and forms part of Scotland, United Kingdom. The islands lie some 80 km to the northeast of Orkney and 280 km southeast of the Faroe Islands, the total area is 1,466 km2 and the population totalled 23,210 in 2012. The largest island, known simply as Mainland, has an area of 967 km2, making it the third-largest Scottish island, there are an additional 15 inhabited islands. The archipelago has a climate, a complex geology, a rugged coastline and many low. Humans have lived in Shetland since the Mesolithic period, and the earliest written references to the date back to Roman times. The early historic period was dominated by Scandinavian influences, especially Norway, when Scotland became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, trade with northern Europe decreased. Fishing has continued to be an important aspect of the economy up to the present day, the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s significantly boosted Shetland economy, employment and public sector revenues. The local way of life reflects the Scots and Norse heritage of the isles including the Up Helly Aa fire festival, the islands have produced a variety of writers of prose and poetry, often in Shetland dialect. There are numerous areas set aside to protect the fauna and flora. The Shetland pony and Shetland Sheepdog are two well known Shetland animal breeds, other distinguished local breeds include the Shetland sheep, cow, goose, and duck. The Shetland pig, or grice, has been extinct since approximately 1930, the islands motto, which appears on the Councils coat of arms, is Með lögum skal land byggja. This Icelandic phrase is taken from the Danish 1241 Basic Law, Codex Holmiensis, and is mentioned in Njáls saga. The name of Shetland is derived from the Old Norse words, hjalt, in AD43 and 77 the Roman authors Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder referred to the seven islands they call Haemodae and Acmodae respectively, both of which are assumed to be Shetland. Another possible early reference to the islands is Tacitus report in AD98, after describing the discovery and conquest of Orkney. In early Irish literature, Shetland is referred to as Inse Catt—the Isles of Cats, the Cat tribe also occupied parts of the northern Scottish mainland and their name can be found in Caithness, and in the Gaelic name for Sutherland. It is possible that the Pictish cat sound forms part of this Norse name and it then became Hjaltland in the 16th century. As Norn was gradually replaced by English in the form of the Shetland dialect which shares similarities with Scots English. The initial letter is the Middle Scots letter, yogh, the pronunciation of which is almost identical to the original Norn sound, /hj/

35.
Perth and Kinross
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Perth and Kinross is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and a Lieutenancy Area. It borders onto the Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Fife, Highland, the council boundaries correspond broadly, but not exactly, with the former counties of Perthshire and Kinross-shire. Perthshire and Kinross-shire shared a joint county council from 1929 until 1975, act 1994. 2% with an 86. 9% turnout rate. Perth and Kinross Council Scottish Local Government areas and history, archived from the original on 2013-03-02. The Perthshire Diary -365 history stories Perth City A Vision of Britain Through Time, A vision of Perth and Kinross Perth and Kinross at DMOZ

36.
North Ayrshire
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North Ayrshire is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. It has a population of roughly 136,100 people and it is located in the southwest of Scotland, and borders the areas of Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire to the northeast and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east and south respectively. North Ayrshire Council is a hung Council, North Ayrshire also forms part of the east coast of the Firth of Clyde. The area was created in 1996 as a successor to the district of Cunninghame, the council headquarters are located in Irvine, which is the largest town. The area also contains the towns of Ardrossan, Beith, Dalry, Kilbirnie, Kilwinning, Largs, Saltcoats, Skelmorlie, Stevenston, West Kilbride, as well as the Isle of Arran and the Cumbrae Isles. The Isle of Arran covers nearly half of the council areas territory, Towns in the north are affluent commuter towns, while Ardrossan, Saltcoats, and Stevenston in the south, are rather more industrial. The inland Garnock Valley towns were once a centre of steel and textile production, however, tourism is the main industry on Arran and Cumbrae, however, the number of holiday homes on the latter has begun to squeeze locals out of the housing market. Regeneration is currently taking place at Ardrossan Harbour and Irvine town centre, the SNP formed a minority administration in the North Ayrshire council area in May 2012, though they were replaced by the Labour Party after a by-election in Irvine West in 2016. In the Scottish Parliament, the area is divided into Cunninghame North. The main administration centre and largest settlement in North Ayrshire is Irvine, the second biggest settlement is Kilwinning which has a population of over 18,000. Other major population centres include Largs, and the Three Towns - Ardrossan, Saltcoats, on the Isle of Arran, the largest village is Lamlash and there are numerous smaller villages. On Great Cumbrae, the town on the island is Millport. Barrmill Park Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park Eglinton Country Park, Irvine Eglinton Tournament Bridge Irvine Harbour Spiers Old School Grounds North Ayrshire at DMOZ

37.
Dumfries and Galloway
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Dumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It comprises the counties of Dumfriesshire, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and Wigtownshire. The administrative centre is the town of Dumfries, following the 1975 reorganisation of local government in Scotland, the three counties were joined to form a single region of Dumfries and Galloway, with four districts within it. Act 1994, however, it has become a local authority. For lieutenancy purposes, the counties are largely maintained with its three lieutenancy areas being Dumfries, Wigtown and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. To the north, Dumfries and Galloway borders East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire, in the east the Borders, and to the south the county of Cumbria in England, to the west lies the Irish Sea. The Dumfries and Galloway Council region is composed of counties and their sub-areas, Dumfries and Galloway covers the majority of the Western area of the Southern Uplands, it also hosts Scotlands most Southerly point, at the Mull of Galloway in the west of the region. This road leaves the A714 at Bargrennan, Water of Ken and River Dee form a corridor through the hills called the Glenkens which carries the A713 road from Castle Douglas to Ayr. The Galloway Hills lie to the west of route through the hills. River Nith rises between Dalmellington and New Cumnock in Ayrshire and runs east then south down Nithsdale to Dumfries, Nithsdale carries both the A76 road and the rail line from Dumfries to Kilmarnock. It separates the Carsphairn and Scaur Hills from the Lowther Hills which lie east of the Nith and this gap through the hills separates the Lowthers from the Moffat Hills. River Esk enters the Solway Firth just south of Gretna having travelled south from Langholm, the A7 travels up Eskdale as far as Langholm and from Langholm carries on up the valley of Ewes Water to Teviothead where it starts to follow the River Teviot to Hawick. Eskdale itself heads north west from Langholm through Bentpath and Eskdalemuir to Ettrick, the A701 branches off the M74 at Beattock, goes through the town of Moffat, climbs to Annanhead above the Devils Beef Tub before passing the source of the River Tweed and carrying on to Edinburgh. Until fairly recent times the ancient route to Edinburgh travelled right up Annandale to the Beef Tub before climbing steeply to Annanhead, the present road ascends northward on a ridge parallel to Annandale but to the west of it which makes for a much easier ascent. From Moffat the A708 heads north east along the valley of Moffat Water on its way to Selkirk, moffatdale separates the Moffat hills from the Ettrick hills to the south. There are three National Scenic Areas within this region, Nith Estuary - This area follows the River Nith southward from just south of Dumfries into the Solway Firth. His mausoleum is in St Michaels graveyard, criffel offers the hill walker a reasonably modest walk with excellent views across the Solway to the Lake District. The house of John Paul Jones founder of the American Navy is also open to visitors near Kirkbean, East Stewartry - This takes in the coast line from Balcary Point eastward across Auchencairn Bay and the Rough Firth past Sandyhills to Mersehead

38.
Scottish borders
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The Scottish Borders is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian and, to the south and east, the administrative centre of the area is Newtown St Boswells. Historically, the name Scottish Borders designated the border region of southern Scotland and. The Scottish Borders are in the part of the Southern Uplands. The region is hilly and largely rural, with the River Tweed flowing west to east through it, in the east of the region, the area that borders the River Tweed is flat and is known as The Merse. Thus, across the region are to be seen the ruins of castles, abbeys. In 1996 the region became a unitary authority area and the districts were wound up, the region was created with the name Borders. Following the election of an area council in 1995 the name was changed to Scottish Borders with effect from 1996. Since the 5th century, there has been evidence of two languages in the area, Brythonic and Old English, the latter of which developed into its modern forms of English. There are two British Parliamentary constituencies in the Borders, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk covers most of the region and is represented by Calum Kerr of the SNP. The western Tweeddale area is included in the Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale constituency and is represented by Conservative David Mundell, at Scottish Parliament level, there are also two seats. The eastern constituency is Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, which is represented by Conservative John Lamont. The western constituency is Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale and is represented by SNP Christine Grahame, following the 2012 local elections, the council administration is now a coalition of Independents, Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats. Prior to the election a coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Independents ruled, the Conservatives are the biggest party on the council with 10 seats, the Liberal Democrats have six. The SNP have nine seats and the Independents have seven, two councillors form the Borders Party. At the Census held on 27 March 2011, the population of the region was 114,000, the region had until September 2015 no working railway stations. Although the area was connected to the Victorian railway system. A bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament to extend the Waverley Line and this section of the route re-opened on 6 September 2015, under the Borders Railway branding

39.
Moray
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Moray is one of the 32 Local Government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, between 1975 and 1996 Moray, with similar boundaries, was a district of the then Grampian Region. The name, first attested around 970 as Moreb, and in Latinised form by 1124 as Morauia, derives from the earlier Celtic forms *mori sea and *treb settlement. During the middle ages the Mormaerdom of Moray was much larger than the council area, covering much of what is now Highland. During this period Moray may for a time have either an independent kingdom or a highly autonomous vassal of Alba. In the early 12th century the mormaerdom/kingdom was defeated by David I of Scotland following a conflict with Óengus of Moray, after that the title became defunct until the 14th century when Thomas Randolph was granted the title Earl of Moray. The earldom would subsequently be destroyed and recreated four times, with its last creation surviving to this day, currently held by John Douglas Stuart, over the centuries the territory of the County of Moray contracted to the area around Elgin. The modern day boundaries of Moray date from the 1975 reorganisation of government in Scotland. The old County of Moray was merged with parts of Banffshire to create an enlarged Moray district, some territory to the west was lost to the Highland Region. In 1996, under the Local Government etc, act 1994, Moray became a single-tier subdivision of Scotland. The lieutenancy area and registration county of Moray cover smaller areas that are similar to the old county, Moray Council currently has 26 members elected using single transferable vote in 8 wards. Currently the council is controlled by an Independent-Conservative coalition, for elections to the House of Commons, Morays boundaries match with the Moray constituency. The current MP is Angus Robertson of the Scottish National Party, Moray is one of the SNPs longest continuously-held seats. For the Scottish Parliament, the majority of Moray is in the Moray constituency, the eastern corner of Moray is instead in the Banffshire and Buchan Coast constituency and the North East Scotland electoral region. In the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Moray voted No by a percentage of 57. 6%. In the 2016 European Union membership referendum, Moray voted Remain by a 50. 1% margin and it had the biggest percentage for Leave out of all the Scottish council areas and the narrowest margin of victory for either side anywhere in the UK. The large majority of Morays population live in the part of the district. Elgin is by far the largest town, being home to 25% of the population at the 2011 census, there are 45 primary and eight secondary schools in Moray and the council currently has responsibility for educating more than 13,000 school pupils

40.
Aberdeenshire
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Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the old County of Aberdeen which had different boundaries. Modern Aberdeenshire includes all of what was once Kincardineshire, as well as part of Banffshire, the old boundaries are still officially used for a few purposes, namely land registration and lieutenancy. Aberdeenshire Council is headquartered at Woodhill House, in Aberdeen, making it the only Scottish council whose headquarters are located outside its jurisdiction, Aberdeen itself forms a different council area. Aberdeenshire borders onto Angus and Perth and Kinross to the south, Highland and Moray to the west, traditionally, it has been economically dependent upon the primary sector and related processing industries. Its land represents 8% of Scotlands overall territory and it covers an area of 6,313 square kilometres. Aberdeenshire has a prehistoric and historic heritage. It is the locus of a number of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, including Longman Hill, Kempstone Hill, Catto Long Barrow. The area was settled in the Bronze Age by the Beaker culture, in the Iron Age, hill forts were built. Around the 1st century AD, the Taexali people, who have little history, were believed to have resided along the coast. The Picts were the next documented inhabitants of the area, and were no later than 800-900 AD, the Romans also were in the area during this period, as they left signs at Kintore. Christianity influenced the early on, and there were Celtic monasteries at Old Deer. Since medieval times there have been a number of paths that crossed the Mounth through present-day Aberdeenshire from the Scottish Lowlands to the Highlands. Some of the most well known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Aberdeenshire played an important role in the fighting between the Scottish clans. Clan MacBeth and the Clan Canmore were two of the larger clans, macbeth fell at Lumphanan in 1057. During the Anglo-Norman penetration, other families such as House of Balliol, Clan Bruce. When the fighting amongst these newcomers resulted in the Scottish Wars of Independence, in 1307, Robert the Bruce was victorious near Inverurie. Along with his victory came new families, namely the Forbeses and these new families set the stage for the upcoming rivalries during the 14th and 15th centuries

41.
South Ayrshire
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South Ayrshire is one of 32 council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of Ayrshire. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire Council is a Conservative controlled council. South Ayrshire also forms part of the east coast of the Firth of Clyde, the Conservative Party currently lead a minority administration in South Ayrshire, with Bill McIntosh as Leader of the Council and Labours Helen Moonie as Provost. They are working within a partnership agreement with the Labour Party, South Ayrshires Headquarters, County Buildings, are located in Wellington Square, Ayr. The buildings were built in 1931 on the site of Ayr Jail, at the front of the buildings is Ayr Sheriff Court which was built as the original county buildings in 1822. Other areas of significance include the towns of Maybole and Girvan which are located to the south of the area in the district of Carrick. Elections held after this point were conducted under the single transferable vote, the council has 30 councillors, elected in 8 multi-member wards by single transferable vote. Scottish National Party, Allan Dorans JP, Nan McFarlane, Douglas Campbell, William Grant, Ian Douglas, John Allan, Ian Cochrane, Alec Oattes and John Wallace. Labour, John McDowall, Helen Moonie, Phil Saxton, Ian Cavana, Andy Campbell, Sandra Goldie, Rita Miller, Kirsty Darwent, independent, Brian Connolly and Alec Clark. 9% No to 42. 1% Yes alongside 28 out of 32 local council areas in Scotland. With a turnout of 86. 1%, there were 34,402 Yes votes and 47,247 No votes. Nationally 55. 3% of voters voted No in the referendum compared to 44. 7%, with a turnout of 69. 8%,36,265 votes were cast for remain and 25,241 were cast for leave. Nationally, 62% of Scottish voters voted remain whilst 38% voted leave, the council elections in May 2003 resulted in a hung council where both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party had 15 seats. Control of the council was given to the Labour party after a cutting of the cards. In November 2005 the leader of the Labour group Andy Hill resigned on the grounds of ill-health, gibson MacDonald became Leader of the Council with Robin Reid as Deputy Leader. Official website South Ayrshire at DMOZ

42.
Stirling
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Stirling is a city in central Scotland. The market town, surrounded by farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its merchants and tradesmen, the bridge. Located on the River Forth, Stirling is the centre for the Stirling council area. It is proverbially the strategically important Gateway to the Highlands and it has been said that Stirling, like a huge brooch clasps Highlands and Lowlands together. Similarly he who holds Stirling, holds Scotland is often quoted, stirlings key position as the lowest bridging point of the River Forth before it broadens towards the Firth of Forth, made it a focal point for travel north or south. This invited control for, military advantage in times of unrest, unsurprisingly an excise man was installed in a covered booth in the centre of the bridge to collect tax from any entering the royal burgh with goods. According to a 9th century legend, when Stirling was temporarily under Anglo-Saxon sway, however the sound of a wolf roused a sentry who alerted his garrison to force a Viking retreat. This led to the wolf being adopted as a symbol of the town, even today it appears with a goshawk on the coat of arms along with the recently chosen motto, Steadfast as the Rock. Once the capital of Scotland, Stirling is visually dominated by Stirling Castle, the poet King was educated by George Buchanan and grew up in Stirling. He was later also crowned King of England and Ireland on 25th July 1603, modern Stirling is a centre for local government, higher education, tourism, retail, and industry. The 2011 census recorded the population of the city as 45,750, One of the principal royal strongholds of the Kingdom of Scotland, Stirling was created a royal burgh by King David I in 1130. In 2002, as part of Queen Elizabeths Golden Jubilee, Stirling was granted city status, Stirling was originally a Stone Age settlement as shown by the Randolphfield standing stones and Kings Park prehistoric carvings that can still be found south of the city. The site has been significant since at least the Roman occupation of Britain, due to its naturally defensible crag and tail hill. Coupled to this it enjoys a position which is not far from the Ochil Hills on the border between the Lowlands and Highlands. Its other notable feature is its proximity to the lowest ancient ford of the River Forth. It remained the rivers lowest crossing point until the construction of the Alloa Swing Bridge between Throsk and Alloa in 1885. It is supposed that Stirling is the fortress of Iuddeu or Urbs Giudi where Oswiu of Northumbria was besieged by Penda of Mercia in 655, as recorded in Bede and contemporary annals. Stirling was chartered as a burgh by King David in the 12th century

43.
East Lothian
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East Lothian, is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. For a time, it was known as Haddingtonshire. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and the Scottish Borders and its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh. East Lothian is also the name of a county, which has different boundaries to the council area. The council area was created in 1996, replacing the East Lothian district of the Lothian region, when abolished, for local government purposes, in 1975, the county of East Lothian bordered the county of Midlothian to the west, and Berwickshire to the south. East Lothian is served by two local weekly newspapers, the East Lothian Courier and the East Lothian News. The former, known locally as The Courier, is the better-selling, the family firm of D. & J. Croal, based in Haddington, owned and operated the paper until it was bought by the Dunfermline Press Group in 2004. The East Lothian News was first published in 1971, as part of Scottish County Press group, with offices in Dalkeith. SCP was acquired by Regional Independent Media in 2000, which was in turn bought by Johnston Press in 2002, East Coast FM is a community radio station run by volunteers which has been broadcasting since 2009 from studios at 8 Market Street in Haddington. The station is registered as a charity, an FM Community Radio Licence was awarded to the station in September 2012 by regulator OFCOM and a frequency of 107.6 FM was allocated in January 2013. It is expected that broadcasting on this frequency will start in March 2013, the station can be accessed worldwide across the internet through their website. East Lothian FM is an Online Community Radio Station operated and managed by East Lothian Community Media Ltd, the result of this application will be announced by Ofcom in due course. 7% with a 87. 9% turnout rate. East Lothian Council official government website East Lothian at DMOZ East Lothian Directory East Lothian Courier East Lothian News East Coast FM

44.
Angus, Scotland
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Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross, main industries include agriculture and fishing. Global pharmaceuticals company GSK has a significant presence in Montrose in the north of the county, Angus was historically a county, known officially as Forfarshire from the 18th century until 1928. It remains a county and a lieutenancy area. In 1975 its administrative functions were transferred to the district of the Tayside Region. The area that now comprises Angus has been occupied since at least the Neolithic period, material taken from postholes from an enclosure at Douglasmuir, near Friockheim, about five miles north of Arbroath has been radiocarbon dated to around 3500 BC. The function of the enclosure is unknown, but may have been for agriculture or for ceremonial purposes, bronze age archaeology is to be found in abundance in the area. Examples include the short-cist burials found near West Newbigging, about a mile to the North of the town and these burials included pottery urns, a pair of silver discs and a gold armlet. Iron Age archaeology is also represented, for example in the souterrain nearby Warddykes cemetery and at West Grange of Conan. The county is associated with the Pictish kingdom of Circinn, which is thought to have encompassed Angus. Bordering it were the kingdoms of Ce to the North, Fotla to the West, the most visible remnants of the Pictish age are the numerous sculptured stones that can be found throughout Angus. Of particular note are the collections found at Aberlemno, St Vigeans, Kirriemuir, Angus shares borders with Kincardineshire to the north-east, Aberdeenshire to the north and Perthshire to the west. Southwards, it faces Fife across the Firth of Tay, Angus is marketed as the birthplace of Scotland. The signing of the Declaration of Arbroath at Arbroath Abbey in 1320 marked Scotlands establishment as an independent nation and it is an area of rich history from Pictish times onwards. Notable historic sites in addition to Arbroath Abbey include Glamis Castle, Arbroath Signal Tower museum, main industries include agriculture and fishing. Global pharmaceuticals company GSK has a significant presence in Montrose in the north of the county, in the 2001 census the population of Angus was recorded as 108,400. 20. 14% were under the age of 16,63. 15% were between 16 and 65 and 18. 05% were aged 65 or above, the most recent available census results show that Gaelic is spoken by 0. 45% of the Angus population. This, similar to other areas, is lower than the national average of 1. 16%

45.
Fife
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Fife is a council area and historic county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with boundaries to Perth and Kinross. By custom it is held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib. It is an area, and was a county of Scotland until 1975. It was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire in old documents, a person from Fife is known as a Fifer. Fife was a government region divided into three districts, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and North-East Fife. Since 1996 the functions of the councils have been exercised by the unitary Fife Council. Fife is Scotlands third largest local authority area by population and it has a resident population of just under 367,000, over a third of whom live in the three principal towns of Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes. The historic town of St Andrews is located on the northeast coast of Fife and it is well known for the University of St Andrews, one of the most ancient universities in the world and is renowned as the home of golf. Fife, bounded to the north by the Firth of Tay, the earliest known reference to the common epithet The Kingdom of Fife dates from only 1678, in a proposition that the term derives from the quasi-regal privileges of the Earl of Fife. The notion of a kingdom may derive from a misintrepretation of an extract from Wyntoun, the name is recorded as Fib in A. D.1150 and Fif in 1165. It was often associated with Fothriff, the hill-fort of Clatchard Craig, near Newburgh, was occupied as an important Pictish stronghold between the sixth and eighth centuries AD. Fife was an important royal and political centre from the reign of King Malcolm III onwards, Malcolm had his principal home in Dunfermline and his wife Margaret was the main benefactor of Dunfermline Abbey. The Abbey replaced Iona as the resting place of Scotlands royal elite. The Earl of Fife was until the 15th century considered the principal peer of the Scottish realm, wool, linen, coal and salt were all traded. Salt pans heated by local coal were a feature of the Fife coast in the past, the distinctive red clay pan tiles seen on many old buildings in Fife arrived as ballast on trading boats and replaced the previously thatched roofs. This endeavour lasted until 1609 when the colonists, having been opposed by the population, were bought out by Kenneth Mackenzie. Fife became a centre of industry in the 19th century

46.
Edinburgh
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Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 local government council areas. Located in Lothian on the Firth of Forths southern shore, it is Scotlands second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The 2014 official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh,492,680 for the authority area. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament and it is the largest financial centre in the UK after London. Historically part of Midlothian, the city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, was placed 17th in the QS World University Rankings in 2013 and 2014. The city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe. The citys historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdoms second most popular tourist destination after London, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, Edinburghs Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. It appears to derive from the place name Eidyn mentioned in the Old Welsh epic poem Y Gododdin, the poem names Din Eidyn as a hill fort in the territory of the Gododdin. The Celtic element din was dropped and replaced by the Old English burh, the first documentary evidence of the medieval burgh is a royal charter, c. 1124–1127, by King David I granting a toft in burgo meo de Edenesburg to the Priory of Dunfermline. In modern Gaelic, the city is called Dùn Èideann, the earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp site dated to c.8500 BC. Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have found on Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat, Craiglockhart Hill. When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, at some point before the 7th century AD, the Gododdin, who were presumably descendants of the Votadini, built the hill fort of Din Eidyn or Etin. Although its location has not been identified, it likely they would have chosen a commanding position like the Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat. In 638, the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria and it thenceforth remained under their jurisdiction. The royal burgh was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown, in 1638, King Charles Is attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In the 17th century, Edinburghs boundaries were defined by the citys defensive town walls

47.
Aberdeen
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Nicknames include the Granite City, the Grey City and the Silver City with the Golden Sands. During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries, Aberdeens buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, other nicknames have been the Oil Capital of the World or the Energy Capital of the World. The area around Aberdeen has been settled since at least 8,000 years ago, the city has a long, sandy coastline and a marine climate, the latter resulting in chilly summers and mild winters. Aberdeen received Royal Burgh status from David I of Scotland, transforming the city economically, the traditional industries of fishing, paper-making, shipbuilding, and textiles have been overtaken by the oil industry and Aberdeens seaport. Aberdeen Heliport is one of the busiest commercial heliports in the world, in 2015, Mercer named Aberdeen the 57th most liveable city in the world, as well as the fourth most liveable city in Britain. In 2012, HSBC named Aberdeen as a business hub and one of eight super cities spearheading the UKs economy. The Aberdeen area has seen human settlement for at least 8,000 years. The city began as two separate burghs, Old Aberdeen at the mouth of the river Don, and New Aberdeen, a fishing and trading settlement, the earliest charter was granted by William the Lion in 1179 and confirmed the corporate rights granted by David I. In 1319, the Great Charter of Robert the Bruce transformed Aberdeen into a property-owning, granted with it was the nearby Forest of Stocket, whose income formed the basis for the citys Common Good Fund which still benefits Aberdonians. The city was burned by Edward III of England in 1336, but was rebuilt and extended, the city was strongly fortified to prevent attacks by neighbouring lords, but the gates were removed by 1770. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of 1644–1647 the city was plundered by both sides, in 1644, it was taken and ransacked by Royalist troops after the Battle of Aberdeen and two years later it was stormed by a Royalist force under the command of Marquis of Huntly. In 1647 an outbreak of plague killed a quarter of the population. In the 18th century, a new Town Hall was built and the first social services appeared with the Infirmary at Woolmanhill in 1742 and the Lunatic Asylum in 1779. The council began major road improvements at the end of the 18th century with the main thoroughfares of George Street, King Street, gas street lighting arrived in 1824 and an enhanced water supply appeared in 1830 when water was pumped from the Dee to a reservoir in Union Place. An underground sewer system replaced open sewers in 1865, the city was incorporated in 1891. Although Old Aberdeen has a history and still holds its ancient charter. It is an part of the city, as is Woodside. Old Aberdeen is the location of Aberdon, the first settlement of Aberdeen

48.
Clackmannanshire
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Clackmannanshire is a historic county and council area in Scotland, bordering the council areas of Stirling, Fife and Perth & Kinross. As Britains smallest historic county, it is often nicknamed The Wee County, when written, Clackmannanshire is commonly abbreviated to Clacks. Clackmannan, the old county town, is named after the ancient stone associated with the pre-Christian deity Manau or Mannan, the stone now rests on a larger stone beside the Tollbooth and Mercat Cross at the top of Main street, Clackmannan. Clackmannanshire became known for the weaving mills powered by the Hillfoots burns, other industries included brewing, glass manufacture, mining and ship building. Now capitalising on its position and transport links, Clackmannanshire attracts service industries. The County of Clackmannan is one of Scotlands 33 historic local government counties, bordering on Perthshire, Kinross-shire, Stirlingshire, the county town was originally Clackmannan, but by 1822 neighbouring Alloa had outgrown Clackmannan and replaced it as the county town. Some rationalisation of the county boundaries was undertaken in 1889-1890, and in 1971 the Muckhart and Glendevon areas, in 1975, under the Local Government Act 1973, the 33 historic counties lost their administrative status, and a new hierarchy of regions and districts was created. Clackmannanshire became part of the Central Region, under the name Clackmannan District, together with Stirling District, the historic name was restored in 1996, under the Local Government etc Act 1994. The area was to have the name Clackmannan, but following local pressure this was changed to Clackmannanshire by the council using its own powers. In terms of population, Clackmannanshire is the smallest council area in mainland Scotland, with a population of 51,400, around half of live in the main town and administrative centre. The motto of Clackmannanshire is Look Aboot Ye, in 2007 a re-branding exercise led to the area adopting the slogan More Than You Imagine. In the 18 September 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, Clackmannanshire reported a turnout of 88. 6% and it became the first area to announce its result with 16,350 people voting in favour of independence and 19,036 voting against. The Ochil Hills lie in the part of the area. Strathdevon is immediately to the south of the escarpment formed by the Ochil Fault. Strathdevon mostly comprises a lowland plain a few hundred metres either side of the River Devon, there is also the Black Devon river that flows past the town of Clackmannan to join the Forth near Alloa. Clackmannanshires coat of arms is blazoned, Or, a saltire gules, upon a chief vert, the red saltire on gold is taken from the arms of the Clan Bruce. According to legend, Robert Bruce mislaid his gauntlets while visiting the county, the green chief represents the countys agriculture, while the black and white pale is taken from the arms of the Clan Erskine whose chief the Earl of Mar lives at Alloa Tower. The main industries are agriculture, brewing, and formerly coal mining, in 2006, permission was given for a waterfront development of the Docks area of Alloa, which has been in decline since the 1960s

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Dundee
–
Dundee, officially the City of Dundee, is Scotlands fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2015 was 148,210 which gave Dundee a population density of 2, 477/km2 or 6, 420/sq mi and it lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Historically part of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late 12th century, rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the 19th century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry. This, along with its major industries gave Dundee its epithet as the city of jute, jam. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdoms digital-entertainment industry, Dundee has two universities — the University of Dundee and the Abertay University. In 2014 Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UKs first UNESCO City of Design for its contributions to fields including medical research, comics. A unique feature of Dundee is that its two football clubs Dundee United and Dundee F. C. have stadiums all but adjacent to each other. With the decline of industry, the city has adopted a plan to regenerate. The name Dundee is made up of two parts, the common Celtic place-name element dun, meaning fort, and a part that may derive from a Celtic element, cognate with the Gaelic dè. The situation of the town and its promotion by Earl David as a trading centre led to a period of prosperity, the earldom was passed down to Davids descendants, amongst whom was John Balliol. The town became a Royal Burgh on Johns coronation as king in 1292, the town and its castle were occupied by English forces for several years during the First War of Independence and recaptured by Robert the Bruce in early 1312. The original Burghal charters were lost during the occupation and subsequently renewed by Bruce in 1327, the burgh suffered considerably during the conflict known as the Rough Wooing of 1543 to 1550, and was occupied by the English forces of Andrew Dudley from 1547. In 1548, unable to defend the town against an advancing Scottish force, in 1645, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Dundee was again besieged, this time by the Royalist Marquess of Montrose. The town was destroyed by Parliamentarian forces led by George Monck in 1651. The town played a role in the establishment of the Jacobite cause when John Graham of Claverhouse. The town was held by the Jacobites in the 1715–16 rising, many in Scotland, including many in Dundee, regarded him as the rightful king. The economy of mediaeval Dundee centred on the export of raw wool, expansion of the whaling industry was triggered by the second Bounty Act, introduced in 1750 to increase Britains maritime and naval skill base

Gloucestershire
–
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, thoug

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A campus of the University of Gloucestershire

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Flag

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Parish Church of St. Mary, Fairford

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Zoo

England
–
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain

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Stonehenge, a Neolithic monument

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Flag

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Boudica led an uprising against the Roman Empire

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Replica of a 7th-century ceremonial helmet from the Kingdom of East Anglia, found at Sutton Hoo

Portrush
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Portrush is a small seaside resort town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, on the County Londonderry border. The main part of the old town, including the station as well as most hotels, restaurants and bars, is built on a mile–long peninsula, Ramore Head. It had a population of 6,454 people as measured by the 2011 Census, in the of

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Planes on the beach during the yearly air show

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Portrush's West Strand Beach.

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A panorama of Portrush

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Portrush.

Northern Ireland
–
Northern Ireland is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom in the north-east of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the total population

Cottage
–
A cottage is, typically, a small house. It may carry the connotation of being an old or old-fashioned building, in modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cosy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. The word comes from the architecture of England, where it referred to a house with ground floor living space. In British Eng

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Cottage built c. 400 years ago, in 1640, near Swedesboro, New Jersey

United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border wi

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Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.

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Flag

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The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.

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The Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.

Bach (New Zealand)
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A bach (/ˈbætʃ/, is a small, often very modest holiday home or beach house in New Zealand. Bach was thought to be short for bachelor pad. An alternative theory for the origin of the word is that bach is the Welsh word for small, baches began to gain popularity in the 1950s as roads improved and the increasing availability of cars allowed for middle

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A larger bach in the North Island.

New Forest
–
The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily populated south east of England. It covers southwest Hampshire and extends into southeast Wiltshire and towards east Dorset, the name also refers to the New Forest National Park which has s

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Picket Hill is one of the highest points in the New Forest, rising 311 ft (95 m) above sea level.

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For other uses, see New Forest (disambiguation).

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Death of William Rufus

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The Rufus Stone Memorial

Lake District
–
The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests and mountains and its associations with the early 19th century writings of William Wordsworth and the other Lake Poets. It is located in the county of Cumbria, and all the land in

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The Skiddaw massif, town of Keswick and Derwent Water seen from Walla Crag

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The A591 road as it passes through the countryside between Ambleside and Grasmere

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A panorama from the summit of Scafell Pike, August 2007

Cornwall
–
Cornwall is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, Cornwall has a population of 551,700 and covers an area of 3,563 km2. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the south-west peninsula of the island of Great Bri

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"Cornweallas" shown on an early 19th-century map of "Saxon England" (and Wales) based on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

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Flag

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Mên-an-Tol.

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St German's Priory Church (Norman)

Holiday home
–
A holiday cottage, holiday home, or vacation property is accommodation used for holiday vacations. Such properties are typically small homes, such as cottages, that vacationers can rent, the properties may be owned by those using them for a vacation, in which case the term second home applies, or may be rented out to holidaymakers through an agency

Internet
–
The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for inte

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The Internet Messenger by Buky Schwartz in Holon.

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An Opte Project visualization of routing paths through a portion of the Internet

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This NeXT Computer was used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world's first Web server.

Telephony
–
The history of telephony is intimately linked to the invention and development of the telephone. The term is used frequently to refer to computer hardware, software, and computer network systems. In this context the technology is referred to as Internet telephony. The first telephones were connected directly in pairs, each user had a separate telep

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A commercial IP telephone, with keypad, control keys, and screen functions to perform configuration and user features.

Personal digital assistant
–
A personal digital assistant, also known as a handheld PC, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. PDAs were largely discontinued in the early 2010s after the adoption of highly capable smartphones, in particular those based on iOS. Nearly all PDAs have the ability to connect to the Internet,

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The Palm TX

Richard Branson
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Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group, which more than 400 companies. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age, at the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record bu

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Branson at the UK Drugs Policy: Taking the Lead Internationally discussion at Chatham House, March 2015

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The Manor Studio, Richard Branson's recording studio in the manor house at the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire.

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Branson in April 2009 at the launch of Virgin America in Orange County, California.

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Branson at the Time 100 Gala in May 2010

Luxury real estate
–
Also, the business of real estate, the profession of buying, selling, or renting land, buildings or housing. It is a term used in jurisdictions whose legal system is derived from English common law, such as India, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Pakistan, Australia. Residential real estate may contain either a family or multifamily struc

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A home in Los Angeles 's wealthy Cheviot Hills neighborhood.

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Hammerwood Park, a country house near East Grinstead, Sussex

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An English country house in Eastbourne, called Compton Place.

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A home in Chicago 's Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Isles of Scilly
–
The Isles of Scilly are an archipelago off the south western tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. It is the southernmost location in England and the United Kingdom, the population of all the islands at the 2011 census was 2,203. Scilly forms part of the county of Cornwall, and some services are combined with those of Cornwall. However, si

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Aerial photo of the Isles of Scilly

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View from Tresco, the second largest of the islands

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Looking across Tresco, one of the 5 inhabited islands of the Isles of Scilly 45 km (27.96 mi) from the coast of Cornwall in the United Kingdom

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Olaf Tryggvason, who visited the islands in 986. It is said an encounter with a cleric there led him to Christianise Norway.

Cumbria
–
Cumbria is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbrias county town is Carlisle, in the north of the county, the county of Cumbria consists of six districts, and in 2008 had a population of just under h

2.
Cumbria shown within England

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The Castlerigg stone circle dates from the late Neolithic age and was constructed by some of the earliest inhabitants of Cumbria

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The Sellafield nuclear processing site near Seascale employs around 10,000 people.

Dorset
–
Dorset /ˈdɔːrsᵻt/ is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the county, which is governed by Dorset County Council. Covering an area of 2,653 square kilometres, Dorset borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, the county town is Dorchester which is in th

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Dorset shown within England

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Corfe Castle, captured and destroyed by Cromwell's army in 1646

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Durdle Door, a natural arch near Lulworth Cove

Norfolk
–
Norfolk /ˈnɔːrfək/ is a county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the west and north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea and, to the north-west, The Wash. With an area of 2,074 square miles and a population of 859,400, of the countys population, 40% live in four

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Wells-next-the-Sea.

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Flag

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River Wensum, Norwich.

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Norwich Cathedral: Spire and south transept.

Devon
–
Devon, also known as Devonshire, which was formerly its common and official name, is a county of England, reaching from the Bristol Channel in the north to the English Channel in the south. It is part of South West England, bounded by Cornwall to the west, Somerset to the northeast, combined as a ceremonial county, Devons area is 6,707 km2 and its

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Menhir at Drizzlecombe

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Part of the seafront of Torquay, south Devon, at high tide

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Heathland at Woodbury Common in south east Devon

East Sussex
–
East Sussex /ˈsʌsᵻks/ is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent to the north and east, Surrey to the north west and West Sussex to the west, archaeological remains are plentiful, especially in the upland areas. The areas position on the coast has also meant that there were invaders, including the Romans. Earlier indu

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County Hall, Lewes

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Flag of East Sussex County Council

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Beachy Head and lighthouse, Eastbourne, East Sussex

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Royal Pavilion, Brighton

Northumberland
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Northumberland is a county in North East England. The northernmost county of England, it borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham and Tyne and Wear to the south, to the east is the North Sea coastline with a 64-mile long distance path. The county town is Alnwick although the county council is in Morpeth, the northernmost point of Northumberland a

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Long Crag summit

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River Coquet.

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Housedon Hill

North Yorkshire
–
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan county and larger ceremonial county in England. It is located primarily in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber, created by the Local Government Act 1972, it covers an area of 8,654 square kilometres, making it the largest county in England. The majority of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors lie wit

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Flag

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Bolton Abbey

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Knaresborough

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An ancient derelict hunting lodge in Dob Park, North Yorkshire.

West Sussex
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West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering East Sussex to the east, Hampshire to the west and Surrey to the north, and to the south the English Channel. Chichester in the southwest is the county town and only city in West Sussex, with the largest towns being Crawley, Worthing, West Sussex has a range of scenery, including wealden, d

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Chichester Market Cross

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West Sussex shown within England

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1813/54 one inch to the mile OS map

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Wakehurst Place Gardens, Ardingly

Suffolk
–
Suffolk is an East Anglian county of historic origin in England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west, the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich, other important towns include Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds, Newmarket and Felixstowe, the county is low-lying with very few hills, and is largely arable land

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Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Andrews (1748–49), housed at the National Gallery in London, depicts the Suffolk landscape of his time.

Snowdonia
–
Snowdonia is a mountainous region in north Wales and a national park of 823 square miles in area. It was the first to be designated of the three parks in Wales, in 1951. The English name for the area derives from Snowdon, which is the highest mountain in Wales at 3,560 ft, in Welsh, the area is named Eryri. The term ‘Eryri’ first appeared in a manu

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View of Llyn Llydaw from Crib Goch

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Panorama of some of the Snowdon Massif including Snowdon (centre right) taken from Mynydd Mawr. The Glyderau are visible in the distance.

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Southern edge. Waymarked path near Llyn Barfog in Gwynedd

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Rain coming in over Llyn Cowlyd north of Capel Curig

Wales
–
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central

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Bryn Celli Ddu, a late Neolithic chambered tomb on Anglesey

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Flag

3.
This article is about the country. For other uses, see Wales (disambiguation).

4.
Coin of Magnus Maximus

Gwynedd
–
Gwynedd is an area in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. As a local government area, it is the second biggest in Wales in terms of geographical area, a majority of the population are Welsh-speaking. The name Gwynedd is also used for a county, covering the two local government areas of Gwynedd and the Isle of Anglesey. Cultura

1.
View of Tremadog bay.

Argyll and Bute
–
Argyll and Bute is both one of 32 unitary authority council areas and a lieutenancy area in Scotland. The administrative centre for the area is in Lochgilphead. Argyll and Bute covers the second largest administrative area of any Scottish council, the council area adjoins those of Highland, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire. Its b

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Argyll and Bute Earra-Ghaidheal agus Bòd Argyll an Bute

Eilean Siar
–
The Outer Hebrides, also known as the Western Isles, Innse Gall or the Long Isle or Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The islands are geographically coextensive with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. They form part of the Hebrides, separated from the Scottish mainland

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Nicolson's Leap on the east coast of South Uist. In the background are Beinn Mhòr at left, and Hecla on the right.

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The open landscapes of Benbecula

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Lews Castle, Stornoway

Scottish Highlands
–
The Highlands are a historic region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, the term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian

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Loch Long

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Lowland-Highland divide

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Inverness, the administrative centre and traditional capital of the Highlands

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Ben Nevis from the path to the CIC Hut alongside the Allt a' Mhuilinn

Orkney Islands
–
Orkney /ˈɔːrkni/, also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of Great Britain. Orkney is 16 kilometres north of the coast of Caithness and comprises approximately 70 islands, the largest island Mainland is often referred to as the Mainland. It has an area of 523 square kilomet

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Coat of arms

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Flag

3.
Blaeu's 1654 map of Orkney and Shetland. Map makers at this time continued to use the original Latin name "Orcades".

Shetland Islands
–
Shetland /ˈʃɛtlənd/, also called the Shetland Islands, is a subarctic archipelago that lies northeast of the island of Great Britain and forms part of Scotland, United Kingdom. The islands lie some 80 km to the northeast of Orkney and 280 km southeast of the Faroe Islands, the total area is 1,466 km2 and the population totalled 23,210 in 2012. The

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Flag

2.
Fort Charlotte overlooking Lerwick, Shetland's largest settlement.

3.
Broch of Mousa

Perth and Kinross
–
Perth and Kinross is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and a Lieutenancy Area. It borders onto the Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Fife, Highland, the council boundaries correspond broadly, but not exactly, with the former counties of Perthshire and Kinross-shire. Perthshire and Kinross-shire shared a joint co

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Perth & Clackmannan Shires. 1854. Civil Parish map

2.
Perth and Kinross Pairth an Kinross Peairt agus Ceann Rois

North Ayrshire
–
North Ayrshire is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. It has a population of roughly 136,100 people and it is located in the southwest of Scotland, and borders the areas of Inverclyde to the north, Renfrewshire to the northeast and East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire to the east and south respectively. North Ayrshire Council is a hung Council, North

1.
North Ayrshire Sìorrachd Àir a Tuath

Dumfries and Galloway
–
Dumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It comprises the counties of Dumfriesshire, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and Wigtownshire. The administrative centre is the town of Dumfries, following the 1975 reorganisation of local government in Scotland, the three counties were jo

Scottish borders
–
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian and, to the south and east, the administrative centre of the area is Newtown St Boswells. Historically, the name Scottish Borders designated the border region of southern Sco

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Part of the Scottish Borders Council offices at Newtown St. Boswells

2.
Scottish Borders The Mairches Na Crìochan

Moray
–
Moray is one of the 32 Local Government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, between 1975 and 1996 Moray, with similar boundaries, was a district of the then Grampian Region. The name, first attested around 970 as Moreb, and in Latinised form by 1124 as Morauia, derives from the ear

1.
Moray Moireibh

Aberdeenshire
–
Aberdeenshire is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the old County of Aberdeen which had different boundaries. Modern Aberdeenshire includes all of what was once Kincardineshire, as well as part of Banffshire, the old boundaries are still officially used for a few purposes, namely land registration and lieutenancy. Aber

South Ayrshire
–
South Ayrshire is one of 32 council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of Ayrshire. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire Council is a Conservative controlled council. South Ayrshire also forms part of the east coast of the Firth of Clyde, the Conservative Party currently lead a minority

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South Ayrshire Sooth Ayrshire Siorrachd Inbhir Àir a Deas

Stirling
–
Stirling is a city in central Scotland. The market town, surrounded by farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its merchants and tradesmen, the bridge. Located on the River Forth, Stirling is the centre for the Stirling council area. It is proverbially the strategically important Gateway to the Highlands and it ha

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Stirling city centre

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Stirling Castle (southwest aspect)

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Stirling in the 18th century

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The tomb of James III, King of Scots at Cambuskenneth Abbey

East Lothian
–
East Lothian, is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. For a time, it was known as Haddingtonshire. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and the Scottish Borders and its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh. East Lothian is also the name of a county, which has different bou

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East Lothian or Haddingtonshire Civil Parish map.

2.
East Lothian Aest Lowden Lodainn an Ear

Angus, Scotland
–
Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross, main industries include agriculture and fishing. Global pharmaceuticals company GSK has a significant presence in Montrose in the north of the county, Angus was h

Fife
–
Fife is a council area and historic county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with boundaries to Perth and Kinross. By custom it is held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib. It is an area, and was a county of Scotland until 1975. It was very occasionally known by the anglicisation F

Edinburgh
–
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 local government council areas. Located in Lothian on the Firth of Forths southern shore, it is Scotlands second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The 2014 official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh,492,680 for the authority ar

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Clockwise from top-left: View from Calton Hill, Old College, Old Town from Princes Street, Edinburgh Castle, Princes Street from Calton Hill

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Edinburgh, showing Arthur's Seat, one of the earliest known sites of human habitation in the area

3.
Edinburgh in the 17th century

4.
A painting showing Edinburgh characters (based on John Kay 's caricatures) behind St Giles' Cathedral in the late 18th century

Aberdeen
–
Nicknames include the Granite City, the Grey City and the Silver City with the Golden Sands. During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries, Aberdeens buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, other nicknames have been the Oil Capital of the World or the Energy Capital of the World. The area

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From the top: Part of the Aberdeen skyline, Aberdeen Harbour, and the High Street in Old Aberdeen.

4.
The Town House, Old Aberdeen. Once a separate burgh, Old Aberdeen was incorporated into the city in 1891

Clackmannanshire
–
Clackmannanshire is a historic county and council area in Scotland, bordering the council areas of Stirling, Fife and Perth & Kinross. As Britains smallest historic county, it is often nicknamed The Wee County, when written, Clackmannanshire is commonly abbreviated to Clacks. Clackmannan, the old county town, is named after the ancient stone associ

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Clackmannanshire Siorrachd Chlach Mhannainn

Dundee
–
Dundee, officially the City of Dundee, is Scotlands fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2015 was 148,210 which gave Dundee a population density of 2, 477/km2 or 6, 420/sq mi and it lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, whic

1.
Clockwise from top-left: View of Glasgow Science Centre, Duke of Wellington statue outside Gallery of Modern Art, Royal Exchange Square, cityscape view from The Lighthouse, Gilbert Scott Building of University of Glasgow, Finnieston Crane, Glasgow City Chambers

2.
The seal or signet of Jocelin, Bishop of Glasgow, founder of the burgh of Glasgow.

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Western Maryland: known for its heavily forested mountains. A panoramic view of Deep Creek Lake and the surrounding Appalachian Mountains in Garrett County.

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Flag

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Dramatic example of Maryland's fall line, a change in rock type and elevation that creates waterfalls in many areas along the Southwest to Northeast geological boundary that crosses the state. Great Falls, cliffs and rapids.

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Typical freshwater river above the tidal zone. The Patapsco River includes the famous Thomas Viaduct and is part of the Patapsco Valley State Park. Later, the river forms the Inner Harbor as it empties into the Chesapeake Bay.

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Clockwise from top left: Smithsonian Institution Building, Rock Creek Park, National Mall (including the Lincoln Memorial in the foreground), Howard Theatre and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

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Map of the District of Columbia in 1835, prior to the retrocession

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Ford's Theatre in the 19th century, site of the 1865 assassination of President Lincoln

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Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool during the 1963 March on Washington